ZAMBIA Hopes To Dodge ‘Group of Death’

The 28th Africa Cup of Nations draw will be conducted in the resort city of Malabo, Equatorial Guinea with Zambia targeting a relatively easy draw tonight.

National Team-Chipolopolo Boys

With seasoned contenders and continental football giants Egypt (record six time winner), Cameroon (four time winner), Nigeria (one time winner), Algeria and South Africa, missing the party Zambia can count among favourites.

Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, both in pool one for the draw, are bookmakers’ favourites to win the title but Zambia, Senegal, Guinea and Morocco stand a fair chance too.

Herve Renard returns from the blues to attempt to guide Chipolopolo to a historic cup title at the expense of Italian Dario Bonetti sacked 48 hours after confirming Zambia’s place at the 16 team tournament.

Bonetti laboured to qualify Zambia with a better record, only second to Ben Bamfuchile’s some 11 years ago.

Not even Patrick Phiri, Kalusha Bwalya and Renard can match Bonetti’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifying record for Zambia in the last 10 years.

Yet the Italian will not be available to complete the job he started some 15 months ago paving way for Frenchman Renard.

Renard will be hoping Zambia gets the fairest of draws in the opening round which is a high possibility.

Make no mistake; a “Group of Death” is equally a high possibility for Zambia.

The fairest Renard can pin his hopes on is a group that may pit Zambia with co-hosts Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso and Botswana.

That’s probably the weakest Zambia could get but a tricky one will be Gabon, Zambia, Morocco and Niger. It’s fair enough though.

There are two possibilities of a ‘Group of Death’ which may see Zambia take on Andre ‘Dede’ Ayew’s Ghana, Mali and Libya or Chipolopolo squaring off with Didier Drogba’s Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and Sudan.

Most certain is that Zambia will avoid Angola, Guinea and Tunisia as the three teams are ranked in pot two alongside Chipolopolo.

Considering these permutations or whichever group Zambia may get, it is not as easy an Africa Cup of Nations as it may look on paper.

The draw starts at 20:00 hours Zambian time and will be beamed live on SuperSport.

28th Africa Cup of Nations Pots

Pot 1: Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast.

Pot 2: Angola, Guinea, Tunisia and Zambia.

Pot 3: Burkina Faso, Mali, Morocco and Senegal.

Pot 4: Botswana, Libya, Niger and Sudan.

Posted by Editor on October 29, 2011. Filed under SPORTS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry