TOUGH OPPONENTS AWAIT SIHLANGU IN GROUP STAGES

MBABANE – The national team, Sihlangu will have a mountain to climb if they are to reach the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals to be held in Ivory Coast in June and July.

They sailed through to the group stages with a 5-1 aggregate win over lowly ranked Somalia in a two legged preliminary round that features they lowly ranked teams in FIFA and CAF rankings. They will have at least two strong opponents in the 12 groups that will comprise of four teams each. The Dominic Kunene-led side will have the highly ranked teams from this pool in the group: Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali and DR Congo, among others. Sihlangu were eliminated in the same stage of the 2021 AFCON, where they finished last in their group that comprised of Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Congo. It was the champions Senegal who qualified in the group and Guinea-Bissau.
The draw for the group stages is yet to be announced by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

winning

South Sudan, Sao Tome, Principe and Lesotho all joined the country in the group phase of the qualifiers after winning their preliminary round second leg matches on Sunday. One match is left before the preliminary round is completed and that is Gambia who plays with Chad today afternoon. Sao Tome managed to squeeze through after their 1-0 victory at home last weekend, after a high scoring draw in the return tie. South Sudan also progressed to the group stages after edging Djibouti by a solitary goal at the St. Mary’s Stadium in Kampala. Djibouti eliminated Sihlangu in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in 2020, while the team was led by Kostadin Papic.

ensuring

Lesotho also went through with a 3-1 scoreline against Seychelles, ensuring they saw the tie to the end at home, having drawn 0-0 in the first leg. Eswatini Football Association (EFA) Marketing and Communications Officer Muzi Radebe said they will wait for a correspondence from CAF as far as the draw and fixtures are concerned.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: