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Liverpool teammates Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane will face each other in the African World Cup playoffs, after Egypt and Senegal were drawn together.
Meanwhile, Algeria and Ghana, smarting after humiliating early exits at the Africa Cup of Nations, were handed tough draws with Cameroon and Nigeria respectively.
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Egypt and Senegal, who are still competing at the Cup of Nations in Cameroon, were two of the five countries that represented the continent at the last finals in Russia.
Algeria and Ghana went home having finished last in their AFCON groups after shock setbacks against Equatorial Guinea and Comoros Islands respectively.
Elsewhere, Morocco were drawn against Democratic Republic of Congo, who did not qualify for the Nations Cup in Cameroon.
Mali have a chance to qualify for the first time after being paired with Tunisia, but face staging their home game on neutral territory; they did not have any fit stadia in the previous qualifying round and played home games in Morocco.
The 10 countries in Saturday’s draw were all winners of their groups in the second round of African World Cup qualifiers played between September and November.
They now meet over two legs in March to determine which five teams will reach the finals. The exact dates of the matches will be announced in the next days, said the Confederation of African Football.
Full draw: Egypt vs. Senegal, Cameroon vs. Algeria, Ghana vs. Nigeria, DR Congo vs. Morocco, Mali vs. Tunisia