FOLLOWING a disappointing exit from the Cosafa tournament, the Warriors will learn of their next opponents with the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) draw set to be conducted by Confederation of African Football in South Africa today.
The “homeless” Warriors will be returning to the draw pot after missing the previous qualifiers due to a Fifa ban.
Caf last month announced that Zimbabwe are part of the 48 nations that will go into the hat today to determine the path to the continental showcase to be staged in Morocco.
Preliminary stage winners Chad, Eswatini, Liberia and South Sudan will join the continent’s 44 highest-ranked nations for the group stage draw that will be held at the SuperSport studios in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The 48 nations will be drawn into 12 groups of four teams each, with the top two teams in each pool qualifying to the finals in Morocco.
Zimbabwe will be seeded in pot four of the draw after they slipped to 38 on the African rankings.
This puts them in danger of a tough draw as they will face one team from each of the three pots above theirs.
The first two games of the qualification series will take place during the Fifa window of September 2 to 10, with two other matches in the October 7 to 15 window and the final two games in the November 11 to 19 window.
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“Headlining the confirmed nations for the draw are reigning African champions Cote d’Ivoire joined by Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini and Ethiopia,” Caf said in a statement.
“Others include Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.”
The 2025 Nations Cup is set to be staged in July and August, although the dates are yet to be confirmed by Caf.
Caf had previously committed to stage its flagship men’s tournament at the end of the European club season, in a June-July slot, but the dates clash with Fifa’s inaugural 32-team Club World Cup.
Earlier this month, Caf secretary-general Veron Mosengo-Omba said that scheduling is “a nightmare” and admitted that the 2025 finals could potentially be played in early 2026.
“We need to make sure that the dates that we will be choosing will be in the interests of the players,” said the Swiss-Congolese, highlighting issues around the workload of the continent’s elite players.
Hosts Ivory Coast won the 2023 Afcon tournament which was held in January and February this year due to fears of excessive heat in the West African summer in the initial slot midway through last year.
The Elephants beat Nigeria 2-1 in the final in Abidjan on February 11.
