Black Stars to discover 2018 World Cup Group stage

Ghana’s Black Stars will discover their opponents for the qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup when the draw is held in the Egyptian Cairo next month.

FIFA has decided that the draw for the third round of African Zone qualifiers for the tournament in Russia will be held at CAF headquarters on 24 June.

This stage of the preliminary competition will involve 20 teams drawn into five four-team groups, with sides playing each other home and away on a round-robin basis.

All five group winners will qualify automatically for Russia 2018.

The Black Stars sealed their place in the final phase of the qualifiers late last year when they defeated Comoros Islands over two legs.

This is the latest step in a qualifying campaign that began for Africa in October 2015 with 53 nations taking part.

Round 1 was contested by the 26 lowest-ranked member associations, the 13 winners from which went on to a second stage against the confederation’s remaining 27 nations.

Just 20 teams now remain from that second round, all of whom will be eagerly awaiting this Round 3 draw, the procedures for which – including pots and seeded teams – will be announced in due course.

All but one of the 54 CAF members took at least the first step on the road to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, with the first 13 advancing and eliminated in turn after home-and-away ties in mid-October.

The lucky 13 were then joined by 27 seeded teams for 20 more two-legged ties, which took place in November.

After those two rounds, Africa was left with 20 nations standing, which will be drawn into five groups of four teams with the round-robin matches to be played between October 2016 and November 2017.

The five group winners qualify for the 21st World Cup in Russia.

All the African powerhouses remain in the running with the goal of reaching Russia and perhaps becoming the first African team to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup.

The format for the draw and its seeding system is yet to be released by CAF, the Confederation of African Football.