The Confederation of African Football (CAF) ranked the 16 qualifiers for AFCON 2015 using a system that combined performances in the last three continental tournaments, the qualifiers for the upcoming competition, and the qualifying tournament for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Put that all together and you end up with Cameroon in the third tier of the competitor nations for AFCON 2015.
Nonetheless, the draw was relatively kind to the Indomitable Lions. The top-ranked team in their group, Ivory Coast, is also the team they beat into second place in their final qualifying group. Guinea and Mali each needed wins in the final game of qualifying to sneak into this tournament.
No team in the group looks like a pushover, but this includes the rebuilding Lions, fresh off an unbeaten qualifying campaign.
The last-placed team in the 2014 World Cup can consider itself a legitimate contender to win its AFCON group.
The full draw for AFCON 2015 is as follows:
Group A
Equatorial Guinea
Congo
Gabon
Burkina Faso
Group B
Zambia
DR Congo
Cape Verde
Tunisia
Group C
Ghana
Senegal
South Africa
Algeria
Group D
Ivory Coast
Guinea
Cameroon
Mali
On paper, Group C looks the toughest: an enthralling combination of four of the top 12 African nations, per the current FIFA rankings (Algeria, currently the top-ranked African nation by FIFA was in CAF's bottom tier for the draw).
But Cameroon's Group D isn't far behind.
