Monrovia—A day after the Liberia Football Association announced the new coach of the national team, Liberia has been paired against Djibouti in the preliminary round of the TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2025. The draw was held in Cairo, Egypt on Tuesday.
By: Christopher C Walker 0886723075/0777898224 [email protected]
According to the draw, the matches will be played on a home-and-away basis during the FIFA window between March 20th and 26th, 2024. Liberia will travel away to Djibouti for the first leg on March 19th, while the return leg will take place in Monrovia on March 24th. The winner from the two matches will qualify for the group stage of the qualifiers.
According to the CAF Coca-Cola 2024 ranking, Liberia currently sits at 46th place, while Djibouti sits far below Liberia at 51st place. The ranking resulted in Liberia being amongst the eight (8) seeded teams. The eight teams were paired against each other, as one team will qualify from each of the pairings, making it four teams to join the other forty-four (44) teams.
The last time both countries met was back in the 2017 AFCON qualifiers where William Jerbo scored a hat-trick as Liberia walloped Djibouti 5-0 at the Antoinette Tubman Stadium. The last time Liberia took on Djibouti was in 2016 across two legs in the CAF African Cup of Nations qualifiers. The first leg took place in Djibouti on March 24th, where the Lonestar won 1-nil. The second leg took place in Liberia on March 29th, where the Lonestar won 5-nil. The aggregate was 6-nil. It has been eight years since both teams met.
Ahead of the two matches later next month, many Liberians are hopeful that the Lone Star can do the job to qualify over their African counterpart. With the recent record from both countries, one can honestly say they are not really far from each other in terms of results. Many things have changed since Djibouti lost 5-0 to Liberia. Djibouti won three, drew one, and lost six of their last 10 games, while Liberia won just one, drew two, and lost seven of their last 10 games. Right after winning 1-0 against Lone Star at SKD, Equatorial Guinea was held to a 1-1 draw by Djibouti.