The Africa Cup of Nations draw took place yesterday night, and the set of groups are shockingly and luckily in our favor, but Egypt will still take nothing for granted.
The draw was held with the spectacular view of the Pyramids, which made quite the nicest background, they were beautifully illuminated, and under the gaze of the Sphinx, the draw was concluded with the following list.
Hosts Egypt will face DR Congo, Uganda and Zimbabwe in Group A.
Defending champions Cameroon are in Group F with Ghana, Benin and Guinea-Bissau.
Full Draw:
The tournament will take place from 21 June till 19 July, which means Europe-based players will not be missing their club games.
The first game of the tournament will be Egypt against Zimbabwe on 21 June at Cairo Stadium, and seeing that the games aren’t to overlap with European tournaments, it is expected that Mo Salah will play among the national team.
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So far, this tournament is considered to be the biggest AfCON, with 24 teams, and the first to be held in Europe’s summer rather than January or February.
Egypt’s assistant coach, Hany Ramzy, said after the draw that the Pharaohs were “comfortable” with their pool.
“We are confident, we are here in our land with the supporters behind us, so we have to work hard to reach the final.”
Comments on the draws from several coaches were as follow:
“It is a difficult group but we are used to this level of competition. The teams know one another very well.”
Morocco coach Herve Renard.
“I don’t think the group is easy especially Guinea. They are very young and we have to be wary. We also have a young team but we have experience as well.”
Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr.
“All the groups are difficult. We have two months to prepare well and we will try to make through the group to the next round. We defeated Egypt before in Kampala 1-0 and I am happy that we will play then in Egypt.”
Uganda coach Sebastien Desabre
“The draw determines the teams you face but we actually have to be good on the pitch during the games to qualify to the next round”
Tunisia coach Alain Giresse