The journey for places to the 20th edition of U-20 Africa Cup of Nations Zambia 2017 commences this weekend with the first leg matches of the First Round.
Twenty (20) teams will be involved in the opening round, with eyes on the places at the Second Round and eventually the final lap, where seven teams will emerge for the final tournament in Zambia next year.
North African giants, Tunisia and Nigeria have home ties against Niger and Mauritania respectively, whilst Ethiopia and Rwanda host neighbours Somalia and Ethiopia in a battle of teams from the CECAFA region.
The West African zone is not left out with Sierra Leone versus Gambia and Liberia against Guinea headlining the fixtures.
The second leg matches will take place on the weekend of 22-24 April 2016.
Reigning champions Nigeria and the likes of Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire and Egypt drew a bye at the First Round.
The rest are Gabon, Ghana, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.
The final tournament will be played from 26th February to 12th March, 2017 in Lusaka.
Fixtures
Friday, 1 April 2016
Tunisia vs Niger
Saturday, 2 April 2016
Sierra Leone vs Gambia
Rwanda vs Uganda
Mozambique vs Mauritius
Swaziland vs Namibia
Sunday, 3 April 2016
Liberia vs Guinea
Algeria vs Mauritania
Sudan vs Kenya
Zimbabwe vs Botswana
Ethiopia vs Somalia
[Cafonline]
How is Zambia U-21 preparing for the tournament that they will host….FAZ should ensue they playing quality Friendly to assess as many plates as possible….
What about Zambia, cant we also utilize those days for friendlies ?
It will be as before, no money
Which stadia are we going to use?
Levi Mwanawasa and Heroes. Its it not obvious???!!!
That’s pretty obvious isn’t it…. we only have four stadia for international games.
Heroes, Levy, Nkoloma, Arthur Davies, is it?
Lusaka. Why not Ndola also, which has modern stadium?
By the way, who is our U20 coach currently?
On another note Sundowns have eight games in one calendar month (April). I hope this crammed up fixture will give Mweene an opportunity for some game time. We need him playing before we get to the last round of the Afcon qualifiers and the world cup qualifiers.
if mwanawasa was still alive, we were going to have another stadium in Livingstone by now. Now look at where we are, just a bunch of mesarable citizens.
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail- I want to see very serious preparations both for the team representing us as well as organization of the whole tournament. We are now living a different world where an excuse for not doing what one was supposed to is equal to failure itself.
2017 is very near and no one should be allowed to go to sleep.
We can easily get to play one of the giants currently on bye. Lets always organize and play friendlies as if we were also competing in the qualifiers. So we should have a team lined up for a friendly match every time we have qualifiers until the end. I am convinced that there will always be teams willing to play friendlies with us. Mwiyamba ati no money, pantu you are a proverbial new broom which sweeps better, though it doesn’t know all the corners. That is why we are now showing you those corners.
Rumour has is that former Cameroon coach and afcon winner winifred schafer is being considered for the zambia football team job. He is currently coaching Jamaica.
Could that be April fool’s day?
Charly Musonda jr is considering playing for Zambia. Hooray!
winifred schafer is old. We need a HR type, Get the TP Mazambe coach. Our boys need a motivator, talent ni mbwe
@Chamz, I second you on that. Scaffer is old. A young motivated coach is what we need.
Now you are talking, preparations must start. Ask Kalu to be the ambassador of this tournament, i think he can agree. He will help you to get quality friendlies as well. We are the same people at the end of the day, Zambians!!!
kalu is gone, forget abt him.
In which say. Remember kamanga has always been around. Thanks
The seemingly impossible can become possible. It will just take a brass band and regalia and some chanting. That is if things begin to fall apart.
Kekekeke
Preps 4 both the team and venues shud start now coz i kno my Zambia. We shud make sure all the stadiums r in gud shape such that if we host it nicely we might be handed the AFCON 20** to host. Turnouts won’t be a problem Zedians love football regardless whose playing.#will leave it rite here 4 now
Hosting the big tournament with bad road network and no hotels will be a disaster. We must fix our house before this tournament before we are embarrassed.