By Daily Revelation Reporter
CHIPOLOPOLO Zambia’s destiny at the 2023 AFCON will be unwrapped on Thursday evening when the draws for the Cote d’Ivoire finals are conducted in Abidjan.
The draws take a significant prominence this time round thanks to the big elephant in the room in Abidjan.
This will be Chipolopolo’s first tournament outing since 2015 whose fallout led to a very divisive and contentious eight-year absence that drove a wedge into the Zambian football political landscape.
Now that the dust has somewhat settled with the end of an unprecedented three successive AFCON absences, a semblance of unity and collective anticipation hangs in the air of what lies in store from January 13 to February 11 in West Africa.
Chipolopolo will together with the other 23 qualified nations know their 2023 AFCON opponents when the draws commence this evening at 21h00 Zambian time.
The 24 teams have been divided into four pots of six nations based on their current FIFA rankings that will aptly see the hosts Cote d’Ivoire and AFCON holders Senegal in Pot One.
North African powerhouses Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria including 2022 FIFA World Cup semifinalists and 2026 Group E opponents Morocco will all avoid each other in Pot One but one might be a group stage suitor for Chipolopolo.
Zambia is in Pot Three in the draws meaning they will avoid South Africa, Cape Verde, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritania who are seeded with them in the same pool.
However, the 2012 winners could find themselves in a group of death against two other ex-AFCON champions with Pot One and Two because ten out of the twelve sides in both those top seeded nations are former winners.
Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, and DR Congo are the ex-champions highlighted in Pot Two.
So, the likelihood of facing Egypt whom Chipolopolo play on the same evening of the draws in an international friendly in Dubai cannot be discounted.
Pot Four has a sprinkling of fellow COSAFA Zone teams namely Mozambique, Angola and Namibia.
This will be the COSAFA zone’s largest AFCON representation since the 1998 Mali finals.
Ironically, all five of those COSAFA teams are in the 2023 draws again.
This time they will be hoping to do better after South Africa was the only one to make it out of the group stages that year en route to finishing second to record seven-time AFCON champions Egypt.
2023 AFCON Draws Seedings
POT ONE: Cote d’Ivoire (Hosts), Morocco, Senegal (Defending champions), Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt
POT TWO : Nigeria, Cameroon , Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, DR Congo
POT THREE: South Africa , Cape Verde , Guinea , Zambia , Equatorial Guinea , Mauritania
POT FOUR: Guinea-Bissau , Mozambique , Namibia , Angola, Gambia, Tanzania
