2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification preliminary round
International football competition
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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.
| 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) |
← 2023 2027 → | |
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 |
|---|---|
|
|
|
Matches
The first legs were played on 20 and 22 March, and the second legs were played on 26 March 2024.[4][5]
| Somalia | 0–3 | Eswatini |
|---|---|---|
| Report |
|
Eswatini won 5–2 on aggregate.
São Tomé and Príncipe  | 1–1 |  South Sudan |
|---|---|---|
|
Report |
|
1–1 on aggregate. South Sudan won on away goals.
Mauritius  | 1–2 |  Chad |
|---|---|---|
|
Report |
|
Chad won 3–1 on aggregate.
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
1 goal
Ousmane Hissein- Amine Hiver
- Mahamat Thiam
Justice Figuareido- Bongwa Matsebula
- Kwakhe Thwala
Oscar Dorley- Mohammed Sangare
Jérémy Villeneuve
Luís Leal
Data Elly