Twenty Teams, Five Places: Final African Qualifying Groups for World Cup 2010

October 22, 2008

The FIFA suits gathered in Zurich this afternoon to draw the remaining 20 African World Cup hopefuls into five groups of four for the final round of South Africa 2010 qualifying. Video of the draw here, but I wouldn’t recommending watching. It’s an excruciatingly slow-moving business (though it’s fun to hear Sepp Blatter via an interpreter).

The final stage is a tough business in CAF: five groups of four teams each, and only the winners of each group make it the World Cup. Second place just means first loser and no competitive football in June/July 2010. Here’s how the groups came out:

Group A
Togo
Cameroon
Morocco
Gabon

Group B
Mozambique
Nigeria
Kenya
Tunisia

Group C
Rwanda
Algeria
Egypt
Zambia

Group D
Ghana
Benin
Sudan
Mali

Group E
Côte d’Ivoire
Malawi
Burkina Faso
Guinea

Of the five top seeds, Cameroon probably got the toughest draw as they’ll have to fight it out with both Togo and Morocco. Seems rough on Cameroon given that they’re the highest ranked African team right now (currently 12th). Egypt seem to have been handed a much easier task, and the back to back Africa Cup of Nations winners will expect to see off Rwanda, Algeria and Zambia.

The good news is that there are plenty of consolation prizes to go around, because these group stages double as Africa Cup of Nations 2010 qualifiers. There are 15 spots up for grabs (hosts Angola make it 16 teams total) so the top three in each group will qualify for the tournament. So basically, don’t finish bottom.

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