2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification preliminary round

2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification preliminary round
Tournament details
Dates20–26 March 2024
Teams8 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played8
Goals scored15 (1.88 per match)
Top scorer(s)Eswatini Sabelo Ndzinisa
Somalia Mohamed Awad
(2 goals each)
← 2023
2027 →

The preliminary round of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification tournament decided the four teams which advanced to the group stage of the qualification tournament. The preliminary round consisted of the eight lowest-ranked teams among the 52 entrants, and was held from 20 to 26 March 2024.

The eight teams were split into four ties which were played in home-and-away two-legged format.[1] The four winners: Chad, Eswatini, Liberia and South Sudan advanced to the group stage to join the 44 teams which entered directly.[2]

Draw

[edit]

The preliminary round draw was held on 20 February 2024, 14:00 CAT (UTC+2) at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[1] The eight involved national teams were seeded into two pots of four based on the FIFA World Rankings from 15 February 2024 (shown in parentheses).[3]

Seychelles (199) and Eritrea (unranked) were excluded from the qualifiers.

The teams in bold qualified for the qualifying group stage.[2]

Pot 1 Pot 2

 Eswatini (149)
 Liberia (152)
 South Sudan (166)
 Mauritius (177)

 Chad (181)
 São Tomé and Príncipe (191)
 Djibouti (192)
 Somalia (198)

Matches

[edit]

The first legs were played on 20 and 22 March, and the second legs were played on 26 March 2024.[4][5]

Team 1Agg. Tooltip Aggregate scoreTeam 21st leg2nd leg
Somalia 2–5 Eswatini0–32–2
São Tomé and Príncipe 1–1 (a) South Sudan1–10–0
Chad 3–1 Mauritius1–02–1
Djibouti 0–2 Liberia0–20–0
Somalia 0–3 Eswatini
Report
Referee: Andre Kolissala Mbangui (Central African Republic)
Eswatini 2–2 Somalia
 Report
Mbombela Stadium, Mbombela (South Africa)
Referee: Joseph Odey Ogabor (Nigeria)

Eswatini won 5–2 on aggregate.

São Tomé and Príncipe 1–1 South Sudan
 Report
Referee: Alhasan Bass (Gambia)
South Sudan 0–0 São Tomé and Príncipe
Report
Referee: Keren Yocette (Seychelles)

1–1 on aggregate. South Sudan won on away goals.

Chad 1–0 Mauritius
 Report
Referee: Ahmed Hassan Hussein (Somalia)
Mauritius 1–2 Chad
 Report
Cote d'Or National Sports Complex, Saint Pierre
Referee: Hassen Corneh (Liberia)

Chad won 3–1 on aggregate.

Djibouti 0–2 Liberia
Report
Referee: Mehrez Melki (Tunisia)
Liberia 0–0 Djibouti
Report
Referee: Karim Sabry (Morocco)

Liberia won 2–0 on aggregate.

Goalscorers

[edit]

There were 15 goals scored in 8 matches, for an average of 1.88 goals per match.

2 goals

1 goal

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2025 Preliminary Draw conducted". CAFOnline.com. 20 February 2024. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  2. ^ a b "Chad and Eswatini reach group stage of TotalEnergies AFCON 2025 qualifiers". Confederation of African Football. 26 March 2024. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  3. ^ "Men's Ranking". FIFA. 15 February 2024. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  4. ^ "TotalEnergies CAF AFCON Morocco 2025 Preliminary Qualifiers get underway on Wednesday". CAFOnline.com. 20 March 2024. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  5. ^ "TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations Qualification 2025 Morocco - Results, fixtures, tables and stats - Global Sports Archive". globalsportsarchive.com. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
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