Zebras go into AFCON hat on July 5

MQONDISI DUBE
Staff Writer | Friday June 22, 2012 00:00

The Zebras, along with 15 other nations, which participated at this year's AFCON finals, were exempted from playing the initial round matches. All the 29 teams which will go into the draw on July 5 have been decided save for the outstanding Egypt/Central African Republic second leg on June 30. The draw will be conducted at the Emperors Palace near OR Tambo International Airport.

The teams will be seeded according to their previous performances at the AFCON finals. This relegates the Zebras to the bottom Pot B.

The best case scenario for the national side is to face Equatorial Guinea, seen as the weakest of teams pooled in Pot A. Strong teams in Pot A include Ghana, Ivory Coast, new champions, Zambia, Mali, Tunisia, Guinea and the fading Cameroon.

Teams will play over two legs with the first scheduled for September 7 to 9 and the return on the weekend of October 12 to 14.  The 15 winners then join South Africa in the final competition draw in Johannesburg at the end of October. The 30 teams who will go into the July 5 draw are the 16 Nations Cup finalists from earlier this year - Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia and winners Zambia. They are joined by Algeria, Cameroon, the Cape Verde Islands, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Egypt's progress to the final round hangs in the balance after the former champions suffered a shock 3-2 loss at home against CAR. The return leg will be played on June 30 to decide the final team to join 29 others. The finals will be held between January 19 and February 10 next year.