{"id":5720,"date":"2022-04-21T18:14:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T18:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw"},"modified":"2022-04-21T19:47:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T19:47:57","slug":"mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw","title":{"rendered":"Mpote reacts to tricky AFCON draw"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span><b>Interim Zebras coach, Mogomotsi \u2018Teenage\u2019 Mpote has admitted his side will start as underdogs after Botswana was drawn against former champions, Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea, and Libya in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>It is not a group of death, but still formidable enough to give the Zebras a headache as they launch their fresh quest for a second appearance at the AFCON finals. The draw for the 2023 qualifiers, which begin in June, was conducted last night in Johannesburg, South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Mpote said he has already started collecting information about the Zebras\u2019 opponents. \u201cLook, we are an unknown entity out of the four countries. The other three have players in France. I have started my research and we will play one game at a time,\u201d Mpote said.<\/p>\n<p>The Zebras were due to play a preliminary round tie against Eritrea last month, but their opponents withdrew. A friendly match against Tanzania did not materialise meaning the team has been inactive since the COSAFA Cup tournament in July. Botswana\u2019s only appearance at the AFCON finals came in 2022.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\">Botswana<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. Interim Zebras coach, Mogomotsi \u2018Teenage\u2019 Mpote has admitted his side will start as underdogs after Botswana was drawn against former champions, Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea, and Libya in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers. It is not a group of death, but still formidable enough to give the Zebras a headache as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":5719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-5720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mpote reacts to tricky AFCON draw - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Interim Zebras coach, Mogomotsi \u2018Teenage\u2019 Mpote has admitted his side will start as underdogs after Botswana was draw ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mpote reacts to tricky AFCON draw\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Interim Zebras coach, Mogomotsi \u2018Teenage\u2019 Mpote has admitted his side will start as underdogs after Botswana was draw ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-21T18:14:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-21T19:47:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/04\/img-6261b4d74ab98.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"520\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mpote reacts to tricky AFCON draw\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-21T18:14:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-04-21T19:47:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw\"},\"wordCount\":194,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/04\/img-6261b4d74ab98.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/mpote-reacts-to-tricky-afcon-draw\",\"name\":\"Mpote reacts to tricky AFCON draw - 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