Chipolopolo will know their 2021 AFCON qualifiers opponents on Thursday when the draws for the Cameron finals are made in Cairo.
Fifty two countries will go into the draws and will be seeded in five pots according to their standings on the FIFA Rankings as of June 14, 2019.
Zambia are in Pot B and will fortunately avoid their now perennial AFCON nemesis Cape Verde and rivals South Africa after they were placed together in Pot B.
Guinea,Uganda,Benin,Gabon,Congo Brazzaville , Mauritania ,Kenya, Niger and Libya are the other teams in Pot B.
But Each will have to contend with a big gun from the top seeds in Pot A who will lead the respective twelve groups.
Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria, Morocco, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ivory Coast, Algeria and hosts Cameroon are in Pot A.
Hosts now play in the qualifiers since the 2017 qualifiers but their group stage matches are classified as friendlies.
Zambia’s other prospective group stage suitors from Pot C are Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Malawi, Togo, Sudan and Tanzania.
Pot E has Liberia, Mauritius, Gambia, South Sudan, Chad, Sao Tome e Principe, Seychelles and Djibouti who will face each other in the preliminary round with the four winners to complete Pot D classification in the group draws.
The draws will see the first team picked from Pot A going into Group One and the sequence will be repeated for the remaining eleven teams to determine the top seeds in each group.
That sequence will be repeated in Pot B where Zambia is.
For example, should Egypt beat drawn into Group One and Zambia are the first team drawn from the Pot B seedings, they will join The Pharaohs’ in that qualifying group.
Group usually is for the host team. I would love to see Zambia in the same group with Egypt or Morocco…kale sana. Arabs were the best opponents who helped cut our teeth
Meant group A