TOUGH AFCON DRAW AWAITS SIHLANGU

National team likely to face either seeded Bafana Bafana, Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria

MBABANE - While the date of the draw for the AFCON 2025 qualifiers should be announced in the coming weeks, the probable pots have been revealed.

Following the publication of the latest FIFA rankings last week, the announcement of the date for the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying groups draw should take place anytime soon. A projection on the pots of the draw has been made by renowned site, afrik-foot.com.

There are four pots made up of 12 teams each, which will be distributed according to their International Federation of Football Associations

(FIFA) ranking. AFCON 2023 finalists Nigeria and champions Ivory Coast are among the top seeds (pot one) alongside Egypt, Algeria and neighbours South Africa, among others.

Sihlangu are projected to be in pot four alongside other lowly-ranked countries. All the countries from pot two to four will face one of the top seeds. 2022 FIFA World Cup semi-finalists Morocco, Mali, Senegal, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon and Burkina Faso should also be among the seeded teams.

The 48 teams will be drawn into 12 groups of four, with each side playing six matches between September and

November to determine who makes the cut for Morocco 2025. During the last qualifiers, a top seed faced by Sihlangu was Burkina Faso. Eswatini finished bottom of the group with no win and three draws. Meanwhile, Sihlangu are currently coach-less following the expiration of the contracts of the entire technical bench at the end of the past month. This publication reliably gathered that the Eswatini Football Association (EFA), in their executive meeting this past Wednesday, could not take a decision, as the technical committee was yet to meet and submit its report.

NB: FIFA ranking in brackets.