Rab’s World

The line-up for the five African groups in the third and final round of qualifying games for the 2010 Fifa World Cup was finalized at Fifa headquarters in Zurich on Wednesday.

The games - which will be played between March and November 2009 promise some great African fixtures.

The 20 countries which went through to the next stage of the tournament in second-round qualifiers took part in the third round draws in the presence of Fifa president Sepp Blatter and Confederation of African Football boss Issa Hayatou.

The countries were drawn in groups organized around the second-round leaders: Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

Danny Jordan, director of the 2010 organisational committee, and Mustapha Fahny, the CAF secretary-general, had no say in the proceedings.

The draw will present soccer fans with some epic encounters between neighbours, such as a Cameroon-Gabon clash in Group A. The matches between Kenya and Mozambique in Group B, Algeria and Egypt in Group C and Mali and Ghana in Group D also promise to produce African classics.

In West Africa, neighbours Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea are set to produce an explosive thriller.

The combined elimination matches for the 2010 World Cup and African Cup of Nations tournaments will see five African countries qualifying for the World Cup. As host nation, South Africa will bring to six the total number of African teams in the tournament.

The groups:

Group A                         Group B

Togo                               Mozambique

Cameroon                       Nigeria

Morocco                          Kenya

Gabon                             Tunisia

Group C                         Group D

Rwanda                           Ghana

Algeria                             Benin

Egypt                              Sudan

Zambia                            Mali

Group E

Côte d’Ivoire

Malawi

Burkina Faso

Guinée