Taifa Stars in World Cup draw today

TANANIA will this evening know its 2010 World Cup qualifying opponents, when the draw is conducted in Durban, South Africa.
The World Cup qualifiers are to be combined with the preliminaries for the 2010 African Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Tanzania is one of the 48 African countries at the draw in Durban, South Africa, where the teams will be divided into 12 groups of four teams each. Each team will play six rounds of matches through 2008 with the 12 group winners plus eight best runners-up progressing to the last league stage.

The 20 remaining teams are to be divided into a final stage of five groups of four, with the resultant group winners going onto the World Cup in South Africa and the top three in each group qualifying for the 2010 Nations Cup finals in Angola.

Tanzania, which is ranked 103rd in the world, is in the third pot of seeds and will be drawn against teams from category one, two and four. Category one teams are Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Tunisia, Zambia and Togo.

Teams in the second category are Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, South Africa, DR Congo, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Congo, Uganda, Libya, Benin and Kenya. Teams in the same category as Tanzania are Botswana, Sudan, Gabon, Ethiopia, Gambia, Cape Verde Islands, Burkina Faso, Namibia, Burundi, Rwanda and Eritrea.

Category four teams are those ranked 130 and below. One team will be taken from each of the four pots of seeds to make a qualifying group. Therefore, Tanzania could be drawn against Nigeria, South Africa and Malawi.