The Confederation of African Football CAF on Saturday announced the preliminary match fixtures of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.
The senior Scorpions of the Gambia, who had recently lost chance to first appearance in a continental championship, have been drawn against the desert foxes of Algeria in the 2013 CAN qualifiers to be held in South Africa.
Algeria is not an unknown opponent to the Gambia as both teams had met twice in the recent three African Nations Cup qualifiers where both teams collected maximum points at home.
Just hours before the draw for the 2012 African cup nations on Saturday, CAF announced the preliminary match ups for 2013 tournament.
 The Nations Cup is been switched from even to odd years, meaning there is only one year between the next two events.
The preliminary phase of the qualifiers will start with the countries who fail to qualify for the tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in January 2012.
Fifteen countries that make it through the preliminary qualifiers will be drawn against fifteen teams from the 2012 tournament.
South Africa as host will qualify automatically, after taking over from Libya, who will now organise the 2017 competition.
The opening rounds of the campaign will take place in early 2012 and the final round of qualifying will happen in September and October 2012.