South Africa misses AFCON after Loss To Sudan, Nigeria Qualifies

The Bafana Bafana of South Africa has failed to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time since 2012 after losing to Sudan on Sunday.

After beating Sao Tome in the last round of matches, and with Ghana failing to defeat Bafana Bafana in the last match, Sudan needed to beat South Africa or miss out on the AFCON.

However, the hosts did the needful as early as the fifth minute when Al Merreikh’s forward Sailfeldin Bakhit opened the scoring.

Twenty seven minutes later, Al Hilal Omdurman’s Abdel Raman doubled the advantage and sealed the needed win to qualify for the tournament behind Ghana who defeated Sao Tome 3-1.

In other results, already qualified Guinea lost to Namibia 2-1, while Tunisia beat fellow qualified nation Equatorial Guinea 2-1 and Tanzania beat Libya 1-0.

Other teams that have qualifed include Nigeria, who beat Benin 1-0 in Porto Novo. Genk forward Paul Onuachu scored the late winner with a header in the 93rd minute to secure the win for the Super Eagles on Saturday.

The 2019 AFCON Bronze medalists had already qualified with Lesotho and Serria Leone playing a 0-0 draw earlier on Saturday.

Benin will have to beat Sierra Leone in Freetown on Tuesday to secure qualification, while Nigeria will face Lesotho who has no qualification chance at all on Tuesday at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos.

Algeria, Ivory Coast, Equitorial Guinea, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Comoros Island, Cameroon, Morocco, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Sudan have all also secured qualification.

In group B, Uganda and Malawi will face each other in other to get the second ticket behind Burkina Faso, who have already secured qualification and will now face South Sudan.

In group E, Burundi, Mauritania and Central Africa Republic still stand a chance at qualifying behind already qualified Morocco.