Sudan can do wonders: Coach

finals against the odds.
Drawn with strong title contenders Ivory Coast, defensive scrooges Angola and improving Burkina Faso in Malabo-based Group B, most pundits believe the east Africans will be lucky to escape three losses.
Abdallah, the coach when Sudan ended a 32-year absence from the biennial championship in 2008, begged to differ in interviews at home and abroad ahead of the Gabon and Equatorial Guinea-hosted tournament.
“It is a tough group and we are seeded fourth,” says the handler popularly known as “Mazda”, “but football is a game of surprises and I am confident of reaching the knockout stage.
“Anything can happen in the Cup of Nations as we have witnessed with football powers like Cameroon, Egypt and Nigeria failing to make it this time so who can predict what may happen?”
Sudan are alone among the 16 title challengers in having an all-local squad, which consists largely of players from Al-Merreikh and Al-Hilal, the clubs who dominate the domestic scene. League champions Merreikh supply 10 of the 23-man squad, runners-up Hilal nine and there is one each from Al-Ittihad Medani, Al-Mourada, Al-Nur and Al-Hasahesa.
But Abdallah believes the Merreikh-Hilal stranglehold is not good for the national team because the giants face few competitive matches other than when they face off.
Another problem for the coach is the glut of foreigners – many Nigerian – who play for the 14 Sudanese top-flight clubs and he says each team has at least one imported striker.
Factfile
Qualifying results: Congo Brazzaville 2-0 1-0, Ghana 0-2 0-0, Swaziland 3-0 2-1
Scorers: 2 – Mohamed Bashir, Mohamed Tahir, 1 – Mudather Eltaib, Badreldin Eldod, Allada Yatif, Bakry Abdelgadir
Captain: Haytham Mostafa
Coach: Mohamed “Mazda” Abdallah
Rankings: Caf 26, Fifa 102
Nicknames: Desert Hawks, Nile Crocodiles
Previous appearances: 1957 – third, 1959 – second, 1963 – second, 1970 – champions, 1972 – first round, 1976 – first round, 2008 – first round
Record: P20 W6 D5 L9 F24 A31
Record win: Nigeria 4-0, losses: Ghana 0-3, Zambia 0-3, Egypt 0-3, Cameroon 0-3. – AFP.