Early history Ethiopia has a long football tradition and was among the pioneers of international competition in Africa, playing its first international match in 1947, defeating
French Somaliland 5–0. The team took part in the
inaugural African Nations Cup in 1957, where it finished second. In 1959, Ethiopia entered the
1962 World Cup qualifiers for the first time and faced
Israel in the second round after a bye. The team lost both games; and with an aggregate score of 2–4 was knocked out of the competition. The team won the African tournament on home soil, in
1962. Nine countries entered the competition, including the reigning champions, the
United Arab Republic, meaning for the first time a qualification tournament was required. As with previous tournaments, the finals only included four teams. The
United Arab Republic, as holders, and Ethiopia as hosts, qualified automatically meaning each needed to play only one game to reach the final. Ethiopia won the tournament for the first time after
extra time in the
final against the United Arab Republic.
Mengistu Worku and
Badawi Abdel Fattah were joint top-scorers, both with three goals each, but the award itself was given to Worku because his team had won the title. This was the greatest feat ever achieved by the Ethiopian National team, and the only African Cup of Nations title it has ever won.
Luciano Vassalo was the team's captain, and the coach was
Ydnekatchew Tessema. In the
1963 African Cup of Nations, they finished fourth, after losing the third place battle against the
United Arab Republic. The
1965 edition was even more of a disappointment for Ethiopia, as the national team was eliminated in group phase by
Tunisia and
Senegal, finishing at the bottom of the group, with only one scored goal. The next African Cup of Nations was the
1968 edition. Again, but this time on home soil, the team finished in fourth place after losing to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo in the semi-finals, and losing the third place match to
Ivory Coast 0–1. But two years later, the team went through a real disaster, as they finished at the bottom of the group phase, with a goal difference of 3–12. The worst was yet to come for Ethiopia as they did not qualify for the
1972 African Cup of Nations at all, losing to
Kenya in the qualifying tournament with a 0–3 aggregate. Almost the same thing happened for the
1974 African Cup of Nations. This time, they were eliminated by
Tanzania. Ethiopia hosted the Nations Cup tournament in
1976, but failed to progress to the final four, finishing third in the group, behind
Guinea and Egypt. In 1977, they played
Mauritius in the qualifiers for the
1978 African Cup of Nations. After a 4–2 win on aggregate, they had to play
Uganda. After a 0–0 draw from the first match, Uganda won the second match, 2–1, and progressed to the final tournament. They also missed the
1980 African Cup of Nations. Until 2013, Ethiopia last qualified for the tournament in
1982, under coach
Mengistu Worku, legendary former player. They failed to make it past the group stage.
Later history (2000–2011) Earlier success in CECAFA Cup (2001–2007) In the
2001 CECAFA Cup, Ethiopia beat
Zanzibar 5–0 and tied 1–1 with
Rwanda B to advance to the quarterfinals against
Burundi. After a 2–2 tie in regulation, they beat Burundi 5–4 in penalty kicks. Ethiopia went on to beat
Rwanda A 1–0 in the semi-finals and
Kenya 2–1 in the finals to win the championship for the first time since 1987. Because of their success in 2001 with
Asrat Haile at the helm, Ethiopia jumped 17 spots in
FIFA rankings from 155th to 138th. Despite their success, the EFF chose to replace Asrat with
German coach
Jochen Figge in August 2002. In the
2002 CECAFA Cup, Ethiopia failed to qualify past the group stage of the competition; they lost all four of their games against Zanzibar,
Uganda,
Somalia, and Rwanda. In
2003 CECAFA Cup, Ethiopia withdrew just before the start of the tournament. The competition only had six participating countries with Burundi, Djibouti, Somalia, and
Tanzania also choosing not to participate. The EFF fired Figge in May 2003, even though the team had won two games and was second in their group in the
2004 African Cup of Nations qualifiers. Then assistant coach, Asrat was appointed interim coach. Ethiopia failed to qualify by 3 points with a loss in the final game in
Guinea. Asrat was soon replaced by
Seyoum Kebede whose tenure with the "Walias" was also short lived. The next challenge was the
2004 CECAFA Cup in
Addis Ababa. There were 9 teams in regional tournament: Burundi, Zanzibar, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Somalia. Ethiopia was led by captain
Zewdu Bekele, and again by coach Asrat who was recalled to the position a mere two weeks before the beginning of the tournament. After defeating Burundi, tying with Rwanda and beating Tanzania, and Zanzibar, the team advanced to the semi-finals for the first time since 2001. Ethiopia advanced to the championship after a dramatic nail-biting penalty shootout with Kenya. That night, people all across Addis Ababa sang and danced in the streets. The Ethiopian national team was the champion of the same
CECAFA Cup competition again in
2005, in
Kigali, Rwanda. This time coached by
Sewnet Bishaw—after a 0–0 draw with Uganda and a 3–1 victory over Sudan—Ethiopia thrashed
Djibouti in a 6–0 victory. They then went on to beat Somalia 3–1. Semi-finals saw Ethiopia whip Zanzibar 4–0, with
Fikru Tefera scoring a hat-trick. In the final match,
Andualem Negusse's goal allowed Ethiopia to take the cup again with a 1–0 win over Rwanda. The Ethiopian team did not fare as well in the next three appearances at the CECAFA Cup. At the
2006 CECAFA Cup in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia lost to Tanzania but beat Djibouti and Malawi in the group stage to advance to the quarterfinals against Zambia. They lost 0–1 with a very late goal by Zambia's
Jonas Sakuwaha in the 87th minute of the game. On 6 December, a
CECAFA emergency committee made the extraordinary decision to have the match replayed because referee
Issa Kagabi (Rwanda) supposedly had whistled the end of the match prematurely. Zambia announced they would refuse to play Ethiopia again. CECAFA secretary general
Nicholas Musonye—not present at the emergency committee meeting—threatened that he'd cancel the entire tournament should match be replayed.
Ethiopian Football Federation declined to have the match replayed and graciously withdrew from the tournament. At
2007 CECAFA Cup, Ethiopia suffered a 1–3 loss to Zanzibar and a hard-fought 0–0 draw with Sudan in which they failed to produce a goal despite star
Fikru Tefera's call up. This was enough to eliminate Ethiopia from the tournament.
Suspension and reinstatement (2008–2009) In the 2008 African Cup of Nations qualifiers, Ethiopia finished bottom of their group after losing their last two games. In July 2008, a
FIFA Emergency Committee decided to suspend the
Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) due to their failure to comply with the road map to normalize the federation agreed upon in February 2008 by
FIFA,
CAF and EFF. The road map was established in Feb 2008 following the dismissal of the country's football federation president
Ashebir Woldegiorgis by the countries authorities. One of the main points of the road map was the organization of an "extraordinary general assembly" to deal with the "motion of dismissal". In addition, the EFF offices were to be handed over to the recognized leadership of the federation. The suspension of the EFF came into force on 29 July 2008, the day on which the federation had officially been notified of its suspension. Ethiopia played four group level matches in
2010 FIFA World Cup qualification before FIFA announced the immediate suspension of the Ethiopian Football Federation. On 12 September 2008, FIFA excluded the Ethiopian team from the 2010 World Cup qualifiers and the results of their matches were cancelled. Ethiopia's exclusion from the World Cup also led to their exclusion from the Africa Cup of Nations. While it was not clear if the team was also explicitly excluded from the
2010 Africa Cup of Nations, their failure to complete the remaining fixtures effectively eliminated them from the tournament because the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification was also used to determine the qualification for 2010 Africa Cup of Nations. The team also missed the
2008 CECAFA Cup due to this suspension. In July 2009, the EFF was reinstated after organizing the extraordinary general assembly and electing new leaders as instructed by FIFA. FIFA's executive committee had voted a month before to lift the suspension so long as that EFF organized and chaired an elective general assembly. FIFA confirmed that it was satisfied with the election.
Continued troubles (2009–2011) At the
2009 CECAFA Cup, Ethiopia defeated Djibouti 5–0, but lost 0–1 to
Zambia and 0–2 to
Kenya, thus finishing third in the group and getting eliminated from the regional tournament. At the
2010 CECAFA Cup, in
Tanzania, Ethiopia was in Group C with
Uganda,
Kenya and
Malawi. After the 1–2 loss to Uganda, Ethiopia beat Kenya 2–1 and came to a 1–1 draw with Malawi. Next opponent was Zambia, and Ethiopia won 2–1 by two goals. In semi-finals however, they lost to Ivory Coast 0–1. In the third-place battle to follow, they lost 3–4 to Uganda to come in fourth place in the tournament. Tournament's star players and goal scorers were
Shimelis Bekele of
Awassa City and
Oumed Oukri of
Defence Force. The team had exceeded fans’ expectations by reaching the semi-final stage. In April 2011, the Ethiopian Football Federation fired national coach
Iffy Onuora – just 9 months after he took charge of the Ethiopian national football team. Ethiopian Football Federation cited disciplinary grounds for his dismissal just a month after the team's 4–0 defeat at the hands of the
Nigerian Green Eagles in Group B of the
2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualification in
Abuja. The Ethiopian national team had played 11 matches during coach Onuora's tenure, winning 4, drawing in 1 and losing 6 matches. The team scored 12 goals and conceded 21 goals in those matches. In May 2011, the EFF appointed former
Zimbabwe and
Namibia manager
Tom Saintfiet as coach in place of Iffy Onuora. However, Tom Saintfiet left his job as Ethiopia's national soccer coach after just five months, citing "broken promises" as the reason for his departure. Saintfiet had been in charge for three 2012 African Cup of Nations qualification matches, including a 2–2 draw with
Nigeria that contributed to the Super Eagles missing out on 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. In the last round of qualification, Ethiopia again won on the away goals rule after a 5–5 draw in aggregate score against Sudan. This qualified Ethiopia to the
Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in 31 years.
2014 World Cup qualification With a 5–0 aggregate victory over
Somalia, Ethiopia joined
South Africa,
Botswana and
Central African Republic (CAR) in
Group A. Ethiopia drew 1–1 with South Africa away from home and beat
CAR at home 2–0 to top the group after the first two games. They beat
Botswana twice, 1–0 on 22 March 2013 at home in
Addis Ababa and 2–1 on 7 June in
Botswana. However, the 7 June win was later awarded to Botswana by a score of 3–0 after it was discovered that Ethiopia fielded an ineligible player. Still, they beat South Africa 2–1 at home on 16 June and secured Ethiopian advancement to the
third round after beating CAR away in their final match, which was considered as a historic achievement for the country. The team eventually was eliminated by
Nigeria with two defeats in the Third Round, though it remains as the best performance ever by Ethiopia in any World Cup qualification. ==Team image==