ACN starts on January 17. There's already been some controversy, original host Morocco refused to host, likely because Guinea, one of the three most ebola-stricken countries, was likely going to qualify. Egypt, Angola, South Africa and a few other declined to host, so CAF settled on Equatorial Guinea (which is pretty far from Guinea, or Guinea-Bissau, or heck Papua New Guinea ). Morocco had an automatic berth since it was the host, but they were kicked out and Equatorial Guinea got the host berth, even though they were disqualified from qualifiers.
Obviously, everyone wants Eq. Guinea in their draw since they are by far the lowest ranked country at 118 in FIFA rankings. The next worst was in the 60s. They use some weird points system taking into account previous ACNs, last two ACN qualifier campaigns, and FIFA qualifers, it's totally convoluted, and allowed the worst four countries into the same group.
Here's the groups:
A Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Congo
B Zambia, Cape Verde, Tunisia, DR Congo
C Ghana, Algeria, South Africa, Senegal
D Ivory Coast, Mali, Cameroon, Guinea
Group A is laughably weak, having the four lowest ranked teams, and totally screws the other three groups. Burkina Faso was a finalist last time but have done little since.
Group C is the group of death, D is also stacked. B is much stronger than A but a step below C and D.
Hoping for another strong showing by Cape Verde, they made the knockout stages last time. The nice thing is if they progress to the knockouts they are guaranteed a weak opponent from Group A. Zambia and Tunisia are both pretty solid teams, and Cape Verde/Tunisia might get chippy since they had a tight WC qualifier playoff in 2013
Last time around it was on ESPN3, but I've seen conflicting info for both beIN and ESPN
Obviously, everyone wants Eq. Guinea in their draw since they are by far the lowest ranked country at 118 in FIFA rankings. The next worst was in the 60s. They use some weird points system taking into account previous ACNs, last two ACN qualifier campaigns, and FIFA qualifers, it's totally convoluted, and allowed the worst four countries into the same group.
Here's the groups:
A Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Congo
B Zambia, Cape Verde, Tunisia, DR Congo
C Ghana, Algeria, South Africa, Senegal
D Ivory Coast, Mali, Cameroon, Guinea
Group A is laughably weak, having the four lowest ranked teams, and totally screws the other three groups. Burkina Faso was a finalist last time but have done little since.
Group C is the group of death, D is also stacked. B is much stronger than A but a step below C and D.
Hoping for another strong showing by Cape Verde, they made the knockout stages last time. The nice thing is if they progress to the knockouts they are guaranteed a weak opponent from Group A. Zambia and Tunisia are both pretty solid teams, and Cape Verde/Tunisia might get chippy since they had a tight WC qualifier playoff in 2013
Last time around it was on ESPN3, but I've seen conflicting info for both beIN and ESPN