The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations preliminary qualifiers kick off on Wednesday afternoon with four matches lined up across different venues in the continent, and one other being played on Wednesday.Somalia will host Eswatini in Tanzania while Djibouti play South Sudan with Lesotho squaring it out with Seychelles as Gambia and Chad face off in the other match for the day, with Sao Tome and Principe playing Mauritius on Thursday.The eventual winners from the five matches, alongside Botswana who have qualified following the withdrawal of Eritrea, will join 42 other African teams for the group stages later in the year.AFCON 2023 preliminary round games will be played during March int’l break.The final round draw (classic formate of four-team groups with top 2 qualified for AFCON) will follow just after those games. #afrykagra pic.twitter.com/o3KxbNkvow— Plovtfi Wada (@LotfiWada) January 21, 2022 Djibouti vs South SudanSouth Sudan have traveled to Egypt to lock horns with Djibouti at the Borg El Arab Stadium in Egypt in the first leg of the encounter, with the return leg set for St Mary’s Stadium in Uganda.Tusker’s forward David Majak, former AFC Leopards midfielder Saad Musa and former Gor Mahia forward Tito Okello headline South Sudan’s squad that will be angling for their first-ever appearance at the AFCON finals.A poor run in the World Cup qualifiers recently where they conceded 25 goals in six matches saw Djibouti’s head coach Julien Mete sacked and replaced with Mohamed Meraneh Hassan who will be out to inspire the nation to avenge the 6-2 aggregate defeat in 2017 in the AFCON preliminary round also.📸 Pictorials: Final preparations for the nearing 2023 AFCON Qualifiers Preliminaries round against Djibouti tomorrow, 23rd March 2022. #SSBrightstars pic.twitter.com/RwRQFmqaAY— South Sudan Football Association (@ssfa_com) March 22, 2022 The match kicks off at 4PM EAT.Gambia vs ChadAfter a fairytale at the AFCON 2021 that saw them go all the way to the quarterfinal final and recorded historic wins against Mauritania, Tunisia, and Guinea but were eliminated by the hosts Cameroon, Gambia will be back at it again and start the 2023 dream with a qualifying match against Chad.Gambia and Mauritius are the only teams to have made an appearance at the main event in the AFCON appearance, Gambia having their maiden appearance in the last edition while Mauritius featured in 1974.None of the two teams between Gambia and Chad will be enjoying home advantage with no approved stadiums in their home countries and thus will have to play on the road, the first match being staged at the Stade Ahmadou Ahidjo in Yaounde and the second leg at the Stade Adrar in Agadir, Morocco on Tuesday, March 29.Game Day Scorpions 🦂 team Gambia in the first leg of the preliminary AFCON 2023 qualifiers against Chad 🇹🇩 kickoff 5pm Cameroon 🇨🇲 time ⏲️ and 4pm Gambian time. Live streaming from Ahmadu Ahidjo Stadium 🏟 on the GFF Facebook page pic.twitter.com/HJG4jdUGMZ— Paul Steven Prierra🇬🇲 (@PaulPrierra) March 23, 2022 The game kicks off at 7PM EAT. Somalia vs EswatiniSomalia will be hoping to capitalize on their foreign-based legion, including Kenyan-born forward Said Haji who plies his trade in the USA, when they play Eswatini in Tanzania, with a trip to South Africa for the return leg.The Ocean Stars new coach and former AFC Leopards tactician Pieter de Jongh has put an emphasis on players based mostly in Europe, Canada, and the USA in his selection.Another Kenyan-born player Handwalla Mohamed Bwana was expected to play a key role in the two-legged clash but he will miss both matches as his club did not release him due to injury, according to Somalia’s FA president Ali Shine. Former AFC Leopards winger Ibrahim Mao is also part of the Ocean Stars squad. Tommorrow is one of the biggest matchday of this national team, a glimer of hope for the somali people who watched our beloved national team be neglected for years, a new era begins. We wish the best for the players and the coaching staff for matchMay Allah grants us success pic.twitter.com/R1uE81mQX6— Ocean stars (@Oceanstars_) March 22, 2022 The match kicks off at 4PM EAT.Lesotho vs SeychellesUnder a new tactician in Serbian trainer Veselin Jelusic, Lesotho will be out to ensure that they qualify for the 2023 AFCON but they will have to see off Seychelles first in the first task for the Serbian.The first-leg will be staged at the Cote D’or Stadium in Mauritius on Wednesday, with the return match being played at Dobsonville Stadium in South Africa on Sunday.The match kicks off at 5PM EAT.
