Equatorial Guinea's build-up to the 2015 African Nations Cup finals could hardly have been more chaotic with their backdoor entry into the competition leaving the football association scrambling for players and a new coach.
The hosts tackle Congo-Brazzaville in the opening match of the tournament at the Estadio de Bata on Saturday (kick-off 16h00 GMT), looking to get their Group A campaign off to a positive start after plenty of off-field shenanigans.
The country was initially booted from the competition in the qualification campaign for fielding an ineligible player - their policy of handing out passports at the drop of a hat finally coming back to bite them. Or so it seemed.
But when Morocco withdrew their hosting of the continental championship, leaving the Confederation of African Football with just a couple of months to find a replacement, Equatorial Guinea stepped into the breach.
That gained their side re-entry into the 16-team competition, but with little time to prepare. Their build-up was not helped when the country's football association decided to axe Spanish coach Andoni Goikoetxea just two weeks before the tournament started, replacing him with their women's coach, Argentine Esteban Becker, who in the end had just 11 days to prepare his side.
It will be of some relief to the team when the football gets underway to take focus away from the chaos to their build-up. And that starts on Saturday with a match against Congo, arguably the weakest side in the 16-team competition but led by the wily Frenchman Claude LeRoy.
As always, the Equatorial Guinea squad is made up of players from the lower leagues in Spain, and are largely an inexperienced group with just a handful of players over 30.
There are few survivors from when the country co-hosted the tournament in 2012 with Gabon and made the quarter-finals. The most notable of those are mid-fielders Juvenal and Iván Zarandona.
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Their biggest attacking threat will likely come from Spanish-born Emilio Nsue, who plays for Middlesbrough in the English Championship, and Javier Balboa, born in Madrid, who turns out for Estoril in Portugal.
Congo's build-up has also not gone without hitches, with LeRoy bemoaning the poor facilities his side have had to deal with in Equatorial Guinea, one of the drawbacks of having the tournament hosted by a country that in truth does not possess the facilities to entertain 16 teams.
"There are not enough places for my staff and it's even difficult to find rooms for the players," LeRoy told reporters. "The electricity is terrible, everything is exposed. I wanted to wash my hands. There was no water.
"Some of my assistants went around to see if there were rooms available somewhere but it seems very, very difficult."
Congo won their place in the finals tournament ahead of Nigeria. They are appearing in their first finals since 2000, when they gained just a single point from their three pool matches.
