The Black Stars of Ghana will today, August 17, 2021 know their opponents when the AFCON 2021 draw is made.
The draw is billed for Yaounde Conference Centre in Cameroon, the host nation of the tournament, originally scheduled for January this year but postponed to January 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The four-time African champions are among 24 participating teams who will be involved in Tuesday’s draw at 6pm.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has revealed the pots, based on the August version of the FIFA rankings.
Pot 1, also seeded teams, is made up of reigning African champions Algeria, as well as Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco and hosts Cameroon.
Ghana, who are the 7th best team in Africa per the Fifa rankings, are in Pot 2 alongside Egypt, Mali, Ivory Coast Guinea and Burkina Faso.
Pot 3 has Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Mauritania, Cape Verde, and Zimbabwe while Pot 4 contains Sudan, Malawi, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia and Gambia.
Per the pots, Ghana will play any one of the seeded teams in the group phase.
The 24 teams will be drawn into six groups of four teams each.
The teams in each group play a single round-robin. After the group stage, the top two teams from each group and the four highest-ranked third-placed teams will advance to the round of 16.
The round of 16 winners will advance to the quarter-finals and the quarter-final winners will advance to the semi-finals.
The semi-final losers will play in a third-place match, while the semi-final winners will contest the final.
Head coach Charles Akonnor who is in Cameroon for the draw is confident of ending Ghana’s AFCON trophy drought next year.
Black Stars were last crowned champions in 1982.
