The draw for the 2017 COSAFA Castle Cup has set up some tasty ties for the regional showpiece tournament that will be staged in South Africa’s North West province from June 25-July 9.

Defending champions South Africa must wait to learn their quarterfinal opponents having been drawn against the winner of Group A at the 2017 COSAFA Castle Cup that will be staged in the North West province from June 25-July 9.

South Africa will come up against one of Angola, east African guest nation Tanzania, Mauritius and Malawi in the regional showpiece tournament.

Tanzania are competing for the third time after 1997 and 2015, with Comoros Islands having declined to take part this year.

Swaziland will face the winners of Group B, which is a hugely competitive pool that includes Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Mozambique and Seychelles.

The other two quarterfinals see Botswana take on Zambia in a titanic battle and 2015 winners Namibia play Lesotho in another COSAFA Castle Cup classic clash.

As in the last two editions, the losing teams in the quarterfinals will enter the Plate competition

The regional showpiece tournament was first played in 1997 and has been won four times each by South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Angola have three titles to their name and Namibia one.

Long-time sponsor of the tournament, Castle Lager, will be hosting a number of exciting activations around the COSAFA Castle Cup, including a five-a-side football competition, and have also brought on board a number of ‘Legends’ from the region to lend their support to the event.

These are Dipsy Selolwane (Botswana), Rotson Kilambe (Zambia), Tinashe Nengomasha (Zimbabwe), Siza Dlamini (Swaziland), Lehlohonolo Seema (Lesotho) and Brian Baloyi (South Africa).

Tico-Tico (Mozambique) and Congo Hindjou (Namibia) will also be assisting COSAFA in our activiations ahead of the tournament.