Black Stars set to know Nations Cup opponents

The Black Stars will know their group opponents for the African Cup of Nations later on Friday as the draw for next year's tournament will be held on Friday.

  The draw to be held in Angola takes place at the Talatona Convention Centre in Luanda on Friday afternoon (15h00 GMT), with the seedings making for some interesting reading.

Ghana will face at least a top footballing nation at the tournament as they have not been seeded for the tournament5.

The teams are separated into four pots, with the sides seeded one to four in Pot 1, five to eight in Pot 2, nine to 12 in Pot 3 and 13 to 16 in Pot 4.

One team from each pot is then drawn in a group to make up four sides per pool. However, the four top seeds have already been assigned their groups, and therefore venues, with hosts Angola in Group A (Luanda), Cameroon in in Group B (Cabinda), Egypt in Group C (Benguela) and Cote d'Ivoire in Group D (Huila).

The draw, to be overseen by CAF President Issa Hayatou and Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, will then place the remaining sides in each pool.

And there are likely to be some mouth-watering ties. Pot 2 contains Tunisia, Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, while Pot 3 features Zambia, Benin, Algeria and Togo.

The final grouping in Pot 4 are Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Gabon and Malawi.

It throws up the possibility that, for example, we could have a Group C featuring Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Burkina Faso, for example, which would be a rekindling of the recent rivalry between the Egyptians and Algerians in World Cup qualifying, with the Tunisians thrown in for good measure.

2010 Africa Cup of Nations Seedings:
Pot 1: Angola, Egypt, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire
Pot 2: Tunisia, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali
Pot 3: Zambia, Benin, Algeria, Togo
Pot 4: Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Gabon, Malawi