AFCON debutants, Madagascar will hope to avoid a baptism in June when the tournament gets underway and Head Coach Nicolas Dupuis will count on his the Barea’s foreign based stars to step up.
One of such players Dupuis will, definitely, be looking to have in his 23-man squad is Kaizer Chief’s midfield maestro, Andrianarimanana Aro.
A call the 27 year-old will be more than happy to honor as he showed his class on Saturday in Amakhosi’s draw away to Black Leopards in the PSL.
Aro scored his first league goal of the season in his sixth appearance for the four-time PSL champions.
Qualification for Madagascar was one of the stories of the qualifying rounds as they picked 10 points in six games; scoring 8 and conceding the same amount of goals.
They finished second behind Senegal and at the expense of Equatorial Guinea and Sudan in group A.
Barea open their 2019 AFCON account against Guinea on June 22 at the Alexandria Stadium in Alexandria, where they’ll play all the first round matches.
Next they face fellow debutants Burundi on June 27 and complete the group stage games on June 30 against Nigeria.
