World Soccer - UK (2022-06)

African

champions...

Senegal star

Sadio Mane

olders Senegal

have been handed

a comfortable route

to the next Africa Cup

of Nations and will

begin the qualifying

campaign for Ivory Coast 2023 almost

five months to the day after winning

their first continental title.

But it is probably not what they

need less than six months away from

competing at the World Cup finals.

They are scheduled to take on Benin

in their opening Group L qualifier and

then play away in Rwanda inJune. But

they would be better served taking on

South American or Asian opponents

for a better sense of what they are

to face at the World Cup finals.

Unlike Europe and the CONCACAF

The road to Abidjan

Group stage of 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying gets

underway in June ahead of next year’s tournament in Ivory Coast

H

region, where they are beginning their

Nations League campaigns, Africa is

usingJune’s international matchdays,

plus those in September, as qualifiers

for the next Cup of Nations. As a result,

the level of competition for the World

Cup-bound teams could turn out to be

far from taxing and far from sufficient.

Senegal’s predicament is shared by

the other four African representatives

in Qatar: Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco

and Tunisia.

They must all play their first two

qualifiers inJune and then two more

in September, before completing

qualification in March 2023, some

three months before the tournament

kicks off in the Ivory Coast.

The qualifying draw was conducted

in late April and is a fairly standard

assignment for the continent’s

leading football powers.

The two top teams in each of the

12 groups advance, except Group H,

where hosts Ivory Coast already have

their place assured, and the highest

finisher out of Comoros, Lesotho

Hosts...Ivory

Coast went out in

the round of16 at

the last AFCON

P

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Africa

MARK GLEESON