Tough draw for Afcon hosts

Saturday’s draw for next year’s finals.
Equatorial Guinea, who will be playing in their first-ever finals at the showpiece of African football, were seeded into Group A, which will play its matches in Bata.
Also in the group are Libya, who will contest the opening match on January 21 against Equatorial Guinea, Senegal and Zambia.
Co-hosts Gabon, who will play their Group C games in Libreville, were drawn against Niger, who are making their first appearance at the finals, as well as north African rivals Tunisia and Morocco.
The Ivory Coast were drawn into Group B, which will play in the capital of Equatorial Guinea, Malabo. There they will face Sudan, as well as Burkina Faso and Angola.
The second Gabon group, which will be played in Franceville, sees Ghana as the top seed, African Cup of Nations rookies Botswana, Guinea and Mali.
Meanwhile, Uganda avoided African soccer powerhouses Nigeria, Egypt and Cameroon to draw Congo Brazaville in the draw conducted in Equatorial Guinea at the weekend.
This will be considered a fair draw back in Uganda considering that the Cranes have had an upper hand almost every time the two have met.
Uganda are also ranked higher than the Central African country at 88th in the Fifa table and 22nd on the continent.
Congo are on the flipside ranked 138th in the world and 38th in Africa. The last time the two met was in the under 21 Olympic qualifiers this year where the Uganda Kobs triumphed in Kampala 1-0 and drew in Brazaville goalless. The Cranes also beat Congo in the 1978 Nations Cup group stages in Ghana.
Forty-six countries will be engaged in the qualification round while South Africa, the host country qualify automatically for the tournament. Only 16 teams that qualified to Nations Cup 2012 will get an automatic bye from the first two rounds and enter directly in the final round of qualifiers that begins after the 2012 Nations Cup finals.
Match dates for the preliminary round are due in the first half of 2012 and exact dates will be communicated by Caf before the end of the year.
The 2012 Nations Cup finals draw
Group A: Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Senegal, Zambia
Group B: Ivory Coast, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Angola
Group C: Gabon, Niger, Morocco, Tunisia
Group D: Ghana, Botswana, Mali, Guinea. – Supersoccer.