2018 WC: Black Stars likely to face Nigeria, Cameroon in group stage

Five-time World Cup finalists, Nigeria, could well draw arch-rivals Ghana and Cameroon in the group phase of the qualifying tournament for the 2018 World Cup should the FIFA rankings be used to seed teams.

No date has been fixed yet for the draw for this final round of the World Cup qualifiers, which will be played on league basis, but speculations are rife that it could be before the end of the year.

Currently, Nigeria are the 59th ranked team in the world and on this count, they will fall in pot 3 of seeds along with Egypt (57), Mali (63), Uganda (68) and Zambia (71).

Pot 1 will have the continent’s top teams Cote d’Ivoire (22), Algeria (26), Ghana (30), Cape Verde (32) and Senegal (39).

Pot 2 will be made up of Tunisia (41), Cameroon (51), Congo Brazzaville (52), Guinea (53) and DR Congo (55).

The last pot of 20 qualifiers could then be Gabon (73), South Africa (75), Morocco (79), Burkina Faso (93) and Libya (113).

A team from each pot will be picked out to form a qualifying group of five teams with the overall winners advancing to the World Cup in Russia.