World Cup quarter-finalists Ghana lead 42 hopefuls when the 2012 African Nations Cup qualifying campaign kicks off this weekend. The ‘Black Stars’ are away to minnows Swaziland on Sunday two months after new Sunderland striker Asamoah Gyan blazed a last-minute penalty over off the crossbar and Uruguay went on to win on penalties.
Midfielders Michael Essien of Chelsea, Sulley Muntari of Inter Milan and Stephen Appiah of Cesena will be notable absentees, leaving wily Serb coach Milovan Rajevac to unleash his young stars on the Swazis. Essien has just returned to action after a lengthy absence caused by a knee injury sustained during training at the 2010 Nations Cup in Angola last January and opted out of African combat for an indefinite period.
Talented but temperamental Muntari has given the coach more grey hairs than the rest of the squad combined and was left out while Appiah decided last month to concentrate on his club career in Italy.
Swaziland usually provide stiff resistance at Somhlolo Stadium in the breathtaking Ezulwini Valley, defeating Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor and his Togo team-mates there in the last qualifying competition.
Sudan host Congo on Saturday in the other Group I fixture knowing that second place is the realistic limit of their ambitions with Ghana hot favourites to secure a place at finals being co-hosted by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
Defending champions no longer get a free passage to the biennial tournament so seven-time title holders Egypt must go through the same six-match grind as everyone else, starting with Sierra Leone in Cairo on Sunday.
The Pharaohs warmed up with a 6-3 home victory over the Democratic Republic of Congo and in young Ahmed Ali from Ismailia they appear to have unearthed another promising striker.
Another threat to the Leone Stars will be Mohamed ‘Geddo’ Nagy, unknown before the 2010 tournament only to upstage stars like Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast and finish leading scorer with five goals. South Africa and Niger are in the same group and the 2010 World Cup hosts cannot afford any slips in north-east city Nelspruit on Saturday as new coach Pitso Mosimane makes his competitive debut. Both teams had encouraging warm-up results last month with Bafana Bafana (The Boys) edging Ghana 1-0 in Johannesburg while Niger forced a goalless stalemate away to Benin.
Algeria, who held England at the World Cup, get the 21-fixture schedule under way on Friday in Blida against Tanzania with the biggest concern of the hosts being the lack of fire power harshly exposed in South Africa.
Drogba has followed Chelsea team-mate Essien and made himself unavailable for multi-talented but trophy-less Ivory Coast, leaving fellow ‘Pensioner’ Salomon Kalou to lead the Abidjan assault on Rwanda on Saturday. That leaves Samuel Eto’o as the only African superstar in action and an away engagement with Mauritius offers the possibility of goals for World Cup flops Cameroon under new Spanish coach Javier Clemente.
Because there are five teams in Group K, three rounds have been played and surprise leaders Botswana can begin dreaming of a first Cup appearance if they defeat Togo on Saturday. The 16-team finals field will comprise Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, the 11 group winners, the Group K runners-up, and the best two runners-up from the other 10 mini-leagues.
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