Nigeria to host S/Africa in first qualifier for AFCON 2019

The Super Eagles of Nigeria will be playing against the Bafana Bafana of South Africa when the campaign for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations begin in June, 2017.

This is according to the full fixtures released by the Confederation of African Football on Friday.

After the Match Day one fixtures, which would also see fellow Group E teams Libya hosting the battle against Seychelles, the qualifying series will return after a nine-month break in March 2018.

And on return, Eagles will travel to Seychelles for the second fixture. The third and fourth fixture will follow between September 3 and 11, when they will first host the Libyans at home and a couple of days later, will travel to Tripoli for the reverse fixture.

The matchday five will be the return leg against South Africa between October 8-16 2018; and the last game in the qualifiers will be the Super Eagles hosting Seychelles in November 2018

Read Also: FIFA Rankings: Eagles return to 50th in the world

Here are the full fixtures for Nigeria:
Matchday one (June 5-13, 2017) – Nigeria vs South Africa
Matchday two (March 19-27, 2018) – Seychelles vs Nigeria
Matchday three/four (September 3-11, 2018) – Nigeria vs Libya, and Libya vs Nigeria
Matchday five (October 8-16, 2018) – South Africa vs Nigeria
Matchday six (November 5-13, 2018) – Nigeria vs Seychelles
The group winner will join the other 11 group winners and three best three runners up as well as hosts Cameroon for the 2019 AFCON finals.

Nigeria will be facing rivals South Africa as their biggest challenge in the group, with both countries missing in the AFCON 2017 which is set to kick off on Saturday at Gabon.

The South African Football Association president, Danny Jordaan, was quoted to have said with confidence, after the draws in Gabon on Thursday, that his side will get an automatic berth at the 2019 finals.

“It’s a reality of sport that you can get a tough draw‚ but I think we have shown over the last few matches that we are equal to Nigeria and that we have a good chance,” said Jordaan.

“It’s going to be tough to juggle the two competitions (World Cup qualifiers and AFCON qualifiers) at the same time. They (Nigeria) have a much stronger possibility for injury and burnout,” he stated.

However, until the qualifiers begin in June, Nigeria will hope to play some international friendlies, with the tie against Senegal now in view.

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