Chan qualifiers set to steal limelight
QUALIFYING begins this weekend for the fourth African Nations Championship (Chan), a senior national football team competition unique to the continent.
Only home-based footballers are eligible, offering space on the international stage for many who would otherwise remain in the shadows.
Many African national teams, including Algeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal, are composed almost exclusively of foreign-based stars.
So the event gives the best home talent a chance to don the national kit and display their skills.
Launched in 2008, the brainchild of CAF president Issa Hayatou has been won by the DR Congo, Tunisia and Libya. The shock Libyan triumph last year was remarkable as the north Africans won only one of their six matches, drawing the other five, including all three in the knockout stages.
Libya triumphed in the 16-team competition, thanks to penalty-kick accuracy and nerves of steel, winning a quarterfinal, a semifinal, and the final against Ghana via shootouts.
They are among 42 countries chasing 15 places at the 2016 finals, while Rwanda qualify automatically as hosts of the January 16-February 7 tournament.
A region-based draw pits Libya against Morocco and Tunisia with the top two after a doubleround mini-league progressing.
The other five geographical areas will use a home-andaway knockout system with two or four games required to secure qualification.
A downside of going regional is that powerhouses can be drawn together and the pairing of Ghana and Ivory Coast later this year means one of them will miss the finals. Of the 16 teams who competed at the 2014 Chan in South Africa, 13 could qualify again.
But the draw means Mali or Mauritania, Burundi or Ethiopia and Nigeria or Burkina Faso cannot make successive appearances. Fourteen preliminaryround, first-leg games are scheduled for this weekend — one in the north, four in the west, three in the east and six in the south.
Swaziland, who caused the biggest shock of the 2017 Afcon qualifiers last weekend by winning away to Guinea, host Angola in the Chan, while Zimbabwe engage Comoros Islands. Return matches are set for July 3-5.