By Daily Sports on June 23, 2016

After dispatching Swaziland 2-0 on aggregate, the Super Eagles will look ahead to the final round of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers knowing fully the ‘Sword of Damocles’ is hanging around their necks.

Failure to qualify for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations means there is added pressure for the Eagles to make it to Russia for the 2018 World Cup.

Not that it will be a walk in the park considering the final leg of qualifying will pit Africa’s best teams against each other.

There will be no margin for error.

Based on the Confederation of African Football (CAF) formula, only one team will make it out from each group.

20 teams have qualified for the final round and they will be split into four groups of five with the winner of each group picking a ticket to represent Africa.

Contrary to rumours about a new format being used, Fifa has decided to go with the special edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking for African teams of June 7

The Pots as churned out by CAF’s ‘special seeding’ looks tantalising at best with a lot of potentially cracking set of games ahead.

The formula used by CAF was the FIFA ranking template were the teams who qualified for the final round were put into pots according to their position on the log as per the standings as at June 7.

Pots

Pot 1- Teams from 1-5

Pot 2- Teams from 6-10

Pot 3 -Teams from 11-15

Pot 4 -Teams from 16-20

Countries into Pots

Pot 1: Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia

Pot 2: Cape Verde Islands, Egypt, Congo DR, Nigeria, Mali

Pot 3: Cameroon, Morocco, Guinea, South Africa, Congo

Pot 4: Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Gabon, Libya

Procedure for draws according to CAF

The teams in Pot 4 will be drawn first. The team drawn first from Pot 4 will be placed in Group A, and its exact position in the group will be determined by a ball drawn from a second pot that will contain four balls with the position numbers 1-4.

The team drawn second from Pot 4 will be placed in Group B, and its position in the group will also be determined by a ball drawn from the second pot. The team drawn third will be placed in Group C, and its position drawn from the second pot. The team drawn fourth will be placed in Group D, and its position drawn from the second pot. Finally, the team in the last ball in Pot 4 will be placed in Group E, and its position will again be drawn from the second pot.

This very same procedure will then be applied for Pot 3, then for Pot 2, and finally for Pot 1. When the last ball containing the name of the final team in Pot 1 has been drawn and its position in Group E has been confirmed by drawing the last remaining ball in the second pot, the draw will be concluded.

What this means, in essence, is that Nigeria won’t face Cape Verde Island, Egypt, Congo DR and Mali but will look into the other pots and savour the prospect of facing Cameroun, Tunisia and eternal rivals Ghana.

•Excerpted from a Supersport report. Photo shows Super Eagles.

Source Daily Sports

Posted June 23, 2016

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