The Nile Ritz-Carlton hotel in Egypt’s capital Cairo hosted the second-round draw for African World Cup 2022 qualifiers was held on Tuesday, January 21.

Africa’s race to elect representatives for the next World Cup now enters the second-round . Forty teams were pooled into 10 groups of four after the draw. This qualifying phase starts in March 2020 and comes to an end in October 2021. Ten teams will make it after this stage.

For the third and final round, the ten group winners will be drawn into five two-legged knockout ties to be played in November 2021.

The forty teams pooled today comprised – the 14 winners of the first-round of qualifiers. They were joined by the 26 highest African nations in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking (as of December 2019). Only the section winners advance to the third round and final round.

How the groups played out

GROUP A
Algeria
Burkina Faso
Niger
Djibouti

GROUP B
Tunisia
Zambia
Mauritania
Equatorial Guinea

GROUP C
Nigeria
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Liberia

GROUP D
Cameroon
Ivory Coast
Mozambique
Malawi

GROUP E
Mali
Uganda
Kenya
Rwanda

GROUP F
Egypt
Gabon
Libya
Angola

GROUP G
Ghana
South Africa
Zimbabwe
Ethiopia

GROUP H
Senegal
Congo
Namibia
Togo

GROUP I
Morocco
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Sudan

GROUP J
DR Congo
Benin
Madagascar
Tanzania

The pots

• Pot 1: Algeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, Egypt, Cameroon, Mali, Congo DR
• Pot 2: Burkina Faso, South Africa, Guinea, Uganda, Cabo Verde, Gabon, Benin, Zambia, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire
• Pot 3: Madagascar, Mauritania, Libya, Mozambique, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Niger, Central African Republic, Namibia, Guinea-Bissau
• Pot 4: Malawi, Angola, Togo, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Djibouti