2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification preliminary round

The preliminary round of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification tournament decided the four teams which advanced to the group stage of the qualification tournament. The preliminary round consisted of the eight lowest-ranked teams among the 52 entrants, and was held from 20 to 26 March 2024.

2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification preliminary round

Tournament details
Dates	20–26 March 2024
Teams	8 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	8
Goals scored	15 (1.88 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Sabelo Ndzinisa Mohamed Awad (2 goals each)
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The eight teams were split into four ties which were played in home-and-away two-legged format.^[1] The four winners: Chad, Eswatini, Liberia and South Sudan advanced to the group stage to join the 44 teams which entered directly.^[2]

Draw

The preliminary round draw was held on 20 February 2024, 14:00 CAT (UTC+2) at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.^[1] The eight involved national teams were seeded into two pots of four based on the FIFA World Rankings from 15 February 2024 (shown in parentheses).^[3]

Seychelles (199) and Eritrea (unranked) were excluded from the qualifiers.

The teams in bold qualified for the qualifying group stage.^[2]

Pot 1	Pot 2
Eswatini (149)  Liberia (152)  South Sudan (166)  Mauritius (177)	Chad (181)  São Tomé and Príncipe (191)  Djibouti (192)  Somalia (198)

Matches

The first legs were played on 20 and 22 March, and the second legs were played on 26 March 2024.^[4][5]

Team 1	Agg. Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Somalia	2–5	Eswatini	0–3	2–2
São Tomé and Príncipe	1–1 (a)	South Sudan	1–1	0–0
Chad	3–1	Mauritius	1–0	2–1
Djibouti	0–2	Liberia	0–2	0–0

20 March 2024 (2024-03-20)

19:00 UTC+0

Somalia	0–3	Eswatini
	Report	Figuareido 33' Ndzinisa 45+3' Thwala 56'

Ben M'Hamed El Abdi Stadium, El Jadida (Morocco)

Referee: Andre Kolissala Mbangui (Central African Republic)

26 March 2024 (2024-03-26)

15:00 UTC+2

Eswatini	2–2	Somalia
Ndzinisa 46' Matsebula 49'	Report	Awad 76', 84'

Mbombela Stadium, Mbombela (South Africa)

Referee: Joseph Odey Ogabor (Nigeria)

Eswatini won 5–2 on aggregate.

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22 March 2024 (2024-03-22)

19:00 UTC+0

São Tomé and Príncipe	1–1	South Sudan
Leal 50'	Report	Elly 78'

Berkane Municipal Stadium, Berkane (Morocco)

Referee: Alhasan Bass (Gambia)

26 March 2024 (2024-03-26)

17:00 UTC+0

South Sudan	0–0	São Tomé and Príncipe
	Report

Berkane Municipal Stadium, Berkane (Morocco)

Referee: Keren Yocette (Seychelles)

1–1 on aggregate. South Sudan won on away goals.

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22 March 2024 (2024-03-22)

19:00 UTC+1

Chad	1–0	Mauritius
Thiam 90+3'	Report

Ahmadou Ahidjo Stadium, Yaoundé (Cameroon)

Referee: Ahmed Hassan Hussein (Somalia)

26 March 2024 (2024-03-26)

19:00 UTC+4

Mauritius	1–2	Chad
Villeneuve 45+2'	Report	Hiver 74' Hissein 90+10'

Cote d'Or National Sports Complex, Saint Pierre

Referee: Hassen Corneh (Liberia)

Chad won 3–1 on aggregate.

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20 March 2024 (2024-03-20)

22:00 UTC+0

Djibouti	0–2	Liberia
	Report	Sangare 23' (pen.) Dorley 35'

Stade de Marrakech, Marrekech (Morocco)

Referee: Mehrez Melki (Tunisia)

26 March 2024 (2024-03-26)

16:00 UTC+0

Liberia	0–0	Djibouti
	Report

Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex, Monrovia

Referee: Karim Sabry (Morocco)

Liberia won 2–0 on aggregate.

Goalscorers

There were 15 goals scored in 8 matches, for an average of 1.88 goals per match.

2 goals

• Sabelo Ndzinisa
• Mohamed Awad

1 goal

• Ousmane Hissein
• Amine Hiver
• Mahamat Thiam
• Justice Figuareido
• Bongwa Matsebula
• Kwakhe Thwala
• Oscar Dorley
• Mohammed Sangare
• Jérémy Villeneuve
• Luís Leal
• Data Elly