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From Petros Kausiyo in CAIRO, Egypt
ZIMBABWE’S consistent showing in the African Nations Championships has reaped rewards for the Warriors with Ian Gorowa’s men being seeded ahead of the draw for the 2014 edition at the Confederation of African Football Headquarters here tomorrow. The Warriors have been to the last two editions of the CHAN tournament having qualified for the inaugural edition in Cote d’ Ivoire under Sunday Chidzambwa in 2009.
Two years later Madinda Ndlovu took charge of the Warriors at the second CHAN tournament in Sudan and, just like the inaugural edition, Zimbabwe could not go beyond the group stage.
But their consistent appearance has paid off for the Warriors with the Caf CHAN organising committee deciding to reward the three countries that have regularly taken part in the competition that is reserved only for those players plying their trade in their national leagues.
Inaugural CHAN winners DRC have the highest points — 14 from their previous participation, Ghana have eight and the Warriors are third with six points.
The other teams who have been seeded on the basis of their 100 percent CHAN record are the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana’s Black Stars while Bafana Bafana will complete the group seeds by virtue of being the hosts.
Caf’s decision to make the Warriors’ Group D seeds means they will play their matches at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in nearby Polokwane where they are expected to attract full houses for their games while hosts South Africa and second seeds DRC will be based in Cape Town and the Black Stars in Bloemfontein
The remaining 12 teams will be categorised into three Pots (Pot 2, Pot 3, Pot 4) based on their results in the first two editions of the CHAN tournament and their zones.
The CHAN draw was preceded yesterday by the pairing of the teams that will compete for the five African slots at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Fifa, in conjunction with Caf, conducted the draw in which the continent’s top five teams — Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria and Tunisia were pooled in Pot A and separated in the African Zone final round of qualifiers.
The draw was conducted by Gordon Savic, Head of Fifa World Cup and Olympic qualifiers competitions, with assistance from Caf secretary-general, Hicham El Amrani.
The Ivorian elephants will start at home against The Teranga Lions of Senegal with the first round of matches scheduled for the weekend of October 11-15 and the reverse fixtures are pencilled in for the weekend of November 15 – 19.
Senegal are, however, banned from playing at the Leopold Sengor Stadium in Dakar following crowd trouble in the capital and would have to find a suitable alternative venue or host Cote d’Ivoire on neutral soil.
African champions, Nigeria, Africa’s third best team in terms of the current Fifa world rankings, will be away to surprise packages Ethiopia while second seeds Ghana take on Egypt, Algeria travel to Burkina Faso for the first leg and Tunisia who qualified via the boardroom receive Cameroon.
Egypt, who were in the same group with the Warriors had an impressive record in the first stage of the qualifiers, winning all their matches while Zimbabwe’s doomed campaign ended winless after they were held 1-1 at home by Mozambique in their last group game.
In fact, there was no Southern African representative at yesterday’s draw for the final African Zone World Cup qualifiers as none of the Cosafa teams made it beyond the group stage.
Football Association Zambia president, Kalusha Bwalya, said although it was disappointing that none of the countries from Southern Africa went into the hat yesterday, he was confident the region’s teams would strike the chord and make a huge impact by qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Bwalya said they had since turned Cosafa’s disappointment in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers, “into hard lessons from which we can only get better’’.
“We were very disappointed at not qualifying but we have managed to get over that now and we are drawing a number of hard lessons from that disappointment.
“We know that everybody has to work very hard now. The draw today is an inspiration to everybody in the region. I think we were doing well but we always have a misstep along the way and I am sure we have learnt from our mistakes in the 2014 qualifiers and for 2018 people should watch out for Southern Africa.
“I also think for the 2015 African Nations Cup the big teams in the Cosafa region, Zambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola will make an impact along with Malawi, Botswana and Namibia who have really improved.
“Once the draws are done for the next AFCON, it will be full throttle but believe me, there is a lot of work being done in the region and we will make a huge statement,’’ Bwalya said. The Chipolopolo legend watched his team’s 2014 World Cup dream being blown away by Ghana in Kumasi with the Black Stars winning 2-1 while Malawi also fell away to Nigeria in their group decider.
Online Reporter