Togo National Team: The Sparrowhawks Football Squad, Records and African Kick Off Times

The Togo national team, known as Les Éperviers (the Sparrowhawks), is the men's football side of Togo, run by the Togolese Football Federation and based at the Stade de Kégué in Lomé. Togo played at the 2006 World Cup in Germany and first appeared at the Africa Cup of Nations in 1972. Their 2013 Africa Cup of Nations campaign ended in the quarter finals. South African readers also know the sport as soccer.

Who Are Togo, and Why Are They Called the Sparrowhawks?

Togo are the national football team of a narrow West African country that lies directly east of Ghana, and their nickname is Les Éperviers, the Sparrowhawks. The team is run by the Togolese Football Federation, known by its French initials FTF, and belongs to the West African Football Union (WAFU) inside CAF. A sparrowhawk is a small, quick bird of prey.

Les Éperviers means the Sparrowhawks.

Who Is in the Togo Squad?

The current Togo squad is listed in the live squad module above, which updates each time the coach names a group, so trust it over any list you find in an older article. Read the club, position and caps columns together when comparing players. Around him, the squad changes from window to window as players move clubs, recover from knocks or play their way into contention, which is exactly why the names belong in a module and not in fixed copy.

When you read the module, look first at the club and league beside each name, because a Togolese defender may well be lining up against a Super Eagles striker or a Black Stars winger in France, Spain or elsewhere on a Saturday. So, the squad list doubles as a viewing guide. The caps column tells you who carries experience.

Has Togo Ever Been to the World Cup?

Yes, Togo played at the World Cup in Germany in 2006, and they lost all three group games. They were beaten 2-1 by South Korea in their opening match, then 2-0 by Switzerland and 2-0 by France, under coach Otto Pfister. Togo scored once at the 2006 World Cup, against South Korea.

The plain language version of the 2006 story is that Togo arrived as a debutant and spent part of the tournament dealing with more than football. Before the Switzerland match the squad threatened strike action over bonus payments. The World Cup qualifying group in the standings module tracks their qualification campaigns.

What Is Togo's Africa Cup of Nations Record?

Togo first appeared at the Africa Cup of Nations in 1972 and reached the quarter finals in 2013. The 2013 tournament marked their first quarter final appearance. In my opinion it also shows what the side can do when a settled group and an experienced spine come together for a single tournament, which is the formula most of Africa's smaller football nations chase.

The Africa Cup of Nations is played as a group stage followed by knockout rounds. Under a format with a round of 16, reaching the quarter finals requires progressing from the group stage and winning the round of 16 tie. Qualifying for the tournament happens in groups across CAF, and that is where the real work sits for Togo between finals. Read the points alongside the competition's stated qualification places and tie breaking criteria.

Who Are Togo's Greatest Players?

Emmanuel Adebayor is Togo's greatest player by the record book, with 32 goals in 88 caps between 2000 and 2019, the most of any Togolese international. For many Super Eagles fans he is also the face of Togo, because his Premier League career put him on the big screens of Lagos week after week. Alaixys Romao holds the appearance record with 97 caps, a midfielder whose longevity tells its own story about reliability. And, in the more recent generation, Kodjo Fo-Doh Laba has carried the goalscoring load as a centre forward, the closest thing to an heir the Sparrowhawks have had.

What Happened to Togo in Cabinda in 2010?

On 8 January 2010, gunmen attacked the Togo team bus in Cabinda, Angola, as the squad travelled to the Africa Cup of Nations. Three people were killed and several were injured, and the separatist group FLEC claimed responsibility. It is the darkest day in the history of the national team, and it belongs on any honest account of Togolese football because it shaped the years that followed. The players, staff and their families carried the weight of it long after the tournament itself had finished.

Togo withdrew from the 2010 tournament after the attack, and CAF then ruled them out of the next two editions, a sanction that was later lifted. Adebayor retired from international football in April 2010 in the aftermath, then returned to the squad in March 2011, which tells you how deep the shock ran and how strong the pull of the shirt remained. So, when you see Togo line up at an Africa Cup of Nations today, it could be argued that every appearance carries a little of that history with it.

How Can You Follow Togo's Qualifying Campaigns?

The standings and results modules carry Togo's World Cup qualifying group, points and match outcomes. Use the competition label to distinguish World Cup qualification from Africa Cup of Nations qualification.

For the Sparrowhawks, each qualifying fixture contributes to the group record shown in the standings module above. When checking that table or log, read the points alongside the competition's stated qualification places and tie breaking criteria.

Where Do Togo Play, and What Are Their Records?

Togo play their home matches at the Stade de Kégué in Lomé, where crowds are known for their passion and their noise on qualifying nights. Their biggest wins are both 6-0, against Swaziland in Accra in 2008 and against Mauritius in Lomé in 2017, and the first of those gives Ghanaian readers a neat link to their own capital. Their heaviest defeats are 7-0 to Morocco in 1979 and 7-0 to Tunisia in 2000. The table below gathers the all time records in one place, and none of them change with a single result.

Togo Fixtures: What Time Is Kick Off Where You Live, and Where Can You Watch?

Lomé uses GMT, and the fixtures module converts Togo's kick off times for readers elsewhere. A 16:00 start in Lomé and Accra corresponds to 17:00 WAT for Lagos, 19:00 EAT for Nairobi and Kampala, and 18:00 SAST for Johannesburg. Readers following the Sparrowhawks from Kenya or Uganda can use the EAT listing to plan their evening.

Togo matches are mainly watched on pay TV sport channels and streaming services, and followed on live score apps, with most fans across the five countries watching or checking on a phone. Broadcast rights change from one qualifying cycle to the next, so the channel listed beside each fixture is the one to go by, and it is refreshed before every window. For each fixture, look at the competition label too, because a friendly, an AFCON qualifier and a World Cup qualifier carry very different stakes for the Sparrowhawks and for any neighbour in the group.

Why Do Togo Matter in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda?

For Ghana, Togo are the next door neighbour, so a meeting between the Black Stars and the Sparrowhawks is a local derby with a shared border, shared trade and fan communities on both sides of it. For Nigeria, Togo arrive through West African qualifiers, the Africa Cup of Nations and, above all, the memory of Adebayor in the Premier League. When Super Eagles fans search for Togo vs Nigeria, the head to head totals are worth reading with a date beside them, as with any rivalry, because definitions of which matches count can differ.

For South Africa, which has the highest search interest of the five, Togo usually matter through the qualifying draw, either as a group opponent for Bafana Bafana or as a result that shifts a rival's position. Kenya and Uganda meet Togo in the same way, through the CAF qualifying cycles that also involve the Harambee Stars and the Uganda Cranes. So, wherever you are reading from, the practical step is the same: find your own team's group in the standings module, then check whether Togo sit in it or beside it. You can compare them with other national teams across the continent.