The young flames of Malawi will have to ease past the aggregate winner between Sudan vs Kenya and hope to see off Nigeria  or the the winner between Burundi vs Congo DR in the final round for a place in the finals of the African Cup of Nations for U20 teams that will be held in Zambia beginning February next year

According to the fixtures released by Confederation of African Football, a total of seven teams will join hosts Zambia in an eight team tournament where the first four will represent Africa in the World Cup U20

Malawi  was among other several teams that were given a bye to the second round, the other teams were Ivory Coast, Mali, Lesotho, Burkina faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Libya, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Congo, Benin

Kenya too have their work cut out especially after electing youthful Nick Mwendwa at the top of the football leadership, the Kenyans are optimistic with Mwendwa’s leadership skills on youth development  a drive that will see them properly  ease past Sudan and hope to do the same against the Malawian opposition. 

The first round will begin in April this year.

The previous tournament tat was held in  2015 in Senegal saw Nigeria win it’s seventh tournament beating Senegal, Mali finished fourth after losing to Morocco all the four teams qualified for the 2015 U20 world Cup where ironically Mali finished third after beating Germany in the playoffs, they also saw off Senegal and Ghana. 

Austin Oduor

talking African football