Three-time champions and five-time runners-up, the Super Eagles, will learn their opponents for the qualification race for the 35th Africa Cup of Nations finals during the draw in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Thursday afternoon.
The draw ceremony, held inside the SuperSport studio in South Africa’s commercial and economic capital, will divide 48 countries into 12 groups of four teams each. The top two teams from 11 of these groups will qualify directly for the finals, scheduled from December 21, 2025, to January 18, 2026.
In the 12th group, host nation Morocco will automatically qualify regardless of their position, along with one other team.
The qualifying matches will be played over the FIFA windows in September, October, and November this year. Nigeria’s opponents in the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying race—Benin Republic, Lesotho, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe—are all included in Thursday’s draw.
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Teams in the Draw:
POT 1: Morocco, Senegal, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, Mali, South Africa, DR Congo, Ghana
POT 2: Cape Verde, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia, Benin Republic, Angola, Uganda, Namibia, Mozambique, Madagascar
POT 3: Kenya, Mauritania, Congo, Tanzania, Guinea Bissau, Libya, Comoros, Togo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Central African Republic
POT 4: Niger Republic, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, The Gambia, Burundi, Liberia, Ethiopia, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, South Sudan, Chad
The Super Eagles finished second at the 2023 AFCON in Cote d’Ivoire, making a surprising push to the final against the host nation. Over 200 million Nigerians have high expectations for their national team to surpass their second-place finish in Abidjan.
However, hopes of winning the AFCON in Morocco seem ambitious following the dismissal of Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro and the brief two-month tenure of his replacement, Finidi George.
