next, having put together a competitive team from
a significant emigrant community in France, mostly
based around Marseille.
Coach Amir Abdou, who lives in France, has
been able to find players at clubs across Europe
and build a side whose ability belies the small status
of the island nation. Defender Fouad Bachirou, for
example, is French born and a Paris Saint-Germain
youth product who recently moved from Malmo in
Sweden to Nottingham Forest.
The Central African Republic and the small
mountain kingdom of Lesotho also hold out hope
of a first-ever finals place. Lesotho are in the same
group as Nigeria, who look certain to finish top, but
could yet challenge Benin and Sierra Leone for the
second qualifying berth.
The 2013 winners Zambia need to stage a major
comeback if they are to qualify. They started their
campaign with a heavy 5-0 defeat at champions
Algeria in Group H in November last year and were
then defeated at home by neighbours Zimbabwe.
Zambia have since appointed the Serbian Milutin
Sredojevic as coach with the task of resurrecting
their chances. He was the coach when Uganda
returned to the finals for the first time in almost
40 years in 2017.Qualification is scheduled to be concluded in
March after which there will be some ten months
to prepare for the finals, now being held in early
2022.Itisaninadvertentreturntothedayswhen
the Cup of Nations was hosted in the same year
as a World Cup.
CAF switched in 2013 to hosting the finals every
odd year because they felt it was too big a clash
on both a competitive and commercial level.
But the reality was that it also offered African
qualifiers for the World Cup the unique advantage
of having a competitive tournament to use as a
warm-up. Too often, however, this was spurned
particularly when coaches were fired after poor
Nations Cup performances on the eve of World
Cup tournaments, throwing teams into total turmoil.
That is a real possibility that awaits again, between
Cameroon 2022 and Qatar 2022.WORLD SERVICENigeria hot-shot...
Victor Osimhen is
qualifying’s current
joint-top scorerBurundi and Mauritania were the other
newcomers at the 2019 finals – expanded to
24 teams for the first time – and there is avid
interest in seeing if there might be more new
faces at Cameroon 2022.
Of the 54 full members of the Confederation
of African Football (CAF), there are now only12
who have never been to the finals.
But The Gambia, coached by well-travelled
Belgian Tom Saintfiet, have taken an early lead
in a tough Group D after holding the Democratic
Republic of Congo to a draw and then pulling
off a shock away win in Angola.
They can consolidate their chances home and
away against Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s Gabon
in their latest round of qualifying.
The tiny Comoros islands top Group G, also
punching above their weight by winning away in Togo
and then holding Egypt to a goalless draw at home.
They have the capability to take points off Kenya
Tough task...
can Sredojevic
help turn around
Zambia’s fortunes?Fourteen countries have previously
won the African championship and the
overwhelming majority of them should
return for another tilt at the title