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World Cup qualifying: South Africa struggling to reach African Nations Cup [Mon Sep 5th, 2005]
Johannesburg (Reuters) - South Africa, out of the 2006 World Cup finals, are also struggling to reach next year's African Nations Cup finals after all but two places in the 16-team field were settled at the weekend.
For the first time, the preliminaries for the World Cup finals in Germany are also serving as qualifiers for the 2006 Nations Cup tournament, which Egypt will host from January 20 to February 10.
While only the top team in each of the five African groups will appear in Germany next year, the first three in each group head to Egypt.
Ghana, Guinea, Zimbabwe and Libya booked their passages to Egypt during the weekend.
They joined Angola, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Zambia and champions Tunisia.
Egypt qualify automatically as hosts, leaving an extra berth available in their qualifying group, which Libya grabbed with a 0-0 draw at home to Sudan.
Two places remain to be decided from Group Two, where Burkina Faso's surprise 3-1 win over South Africa in Ouagadougou at the weekend kept alive their chances.
South Africa, the hosts of the 2010 World Cup finals, have yet to confirm their place in the Nations Cup despite holding a comfortable lead in their group just three months ago.
They have since slipped to third place, three points behind leaders Ghana.
The Burkinabe lie fourth in the group behind the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa, who have a three-point lead over them.
But Burkina Faso will move into third place provided they beat Uganda in their qualifier in Kampala on October 8, and there is a result in South Africa's match with Congo on the same day. A draw in South Africa would, however, eliminate Burkina Faso.
Five of the teams who participated at the 2004 finals in Tunisia have not qualified for the 2006 event. Algeria, Benin, Kenya, Mali and Rwanda have all been eliminated and could be joined by Burkina Faso.
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