Can Africa Win the World Cup?

Cameroon 1990. Senegal 2002. Ghana 2010. Morocco 2022. Four times Africa was close enough to believe. Four times it wasn't enough. Now ten teams head to North America. This is the story of what has held African football back — and what it would actually mean if that finally changed. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

In 1990, a Cameroonian striker by the name of Roger Millar danced around a corner flag in Italy. He had just scored, and in that moment, for the first time in a World Cup, Africa felt like it might actually be here. Cameroon beat Argentina in the opening game. They pushed through the group before losing to England in the quarterfinals. They went home. But the quarterfinal ceiling had been broken. Africa had arrived at the game's biggest stage and competed. That was 36 years ago. Since then, African teams have been close, agonizingly, heartbreakingly close. Senegal in 2002, Ghana in 2010, Morocco in 2022 when they became the first African team in history to reach a World Cup semi-final. The World Cup has been played 22 times. An African team has never lifted the trophy. Not once. This month, for the first time in the history of the tournament, 10 African teams will work out at a World Cup. 10. The tournament has been expanded to 48 teams, and Africa has been given its largest allocation ever. 10 different countries, 10 different squads, 10 different sets at the thing that has never happened. This episode is about whether this time is different. It's about the near misses that haunted the continent for three decades. About the 10 teams heading to North America, who they face, what they carry with them, and at the end, about what it would actually mean if an African team was to win the World Cup. Not as a football result, but as something much larger than that. My name is Amadou. This is Learning Africa. To understand what this World Cup means for African football, you have to understand four defining moments of African football. Four moments when Africa was close enough to touch the thing it had never had. Let's start with Cameroon 1990. The Indomitable Lions arrived in Italy as outsiders. Their opening game was against the reigning world champions. The Argentina of Diego Maradona, the greatest team on earth at the time. Cameroon won 1-0. It was one of the great upsets in World Cup history. Then they went on to beat Romania, then Colombia, before losing to England in the quarterfinal. What Cameroon sold in 1990 was not ability, but it was audacity. The refusal to be impressed by names and reputations, the belief that the space between being good enough to compete and being good enough to win was actually smaller than the world had been told. Then there was Senegal in 2002. The Teranga Lions played their opening game of the 2002 World Cup against France, the defending world champions, arguably the greatest squad ever assembled. Senegal won 1-0. It remains one of the most celebrated upsets in World Cup history. Senegal did not stop there. They beat Sweden, they drew with Uruguay, and they went on to the quarterfinals. The same ceiling Cameroon had hit. They faced Turkey and lost 1-0 in extra time. But for a brief and extraordinary few weeks, a country of 10 million people had the world paying attention. And then there is Ghana, 2010. This one still hurts. I remember exactly where I was and who I was watching the game with. The Black Stars went on to the quarterfinals at the first ever World Cup hosted on African soil. South Africa was hosting. As the last African team in the tournament, Ghana had the whole continent behind it. Against Uruguay in the last minute of extra time with a score level, Asamoa Gian stepped up to take a penalty that would have put Ghana into a World Cup semi-final. For the first time in history, he hit the crossbar. Luis Suarez had deliberately handled the ball on the goal line to stop the ball going in. He was sent off, but the handball that should have ended the game was followed by a missed penalty. Uruguay won on penalties, Ghana went home. It was and still is one of the most painful moments in African football. And then there was Morocco 2022. The Atlas Lions went to Qatar as a team ranked 22nd in the World Cup. They left having done something no African team had ever done, reaching a World Cup semi-final. On their way, they beat Belgium, they beat Spain on penalties, they beat Portugal. Then they only lost to France, finishing fourth. In the streets of Rabat and Casablanca and across the continent, people wept, not from sadness, but from something that was much harder to name. A recognition that the ceiling everyone had assumed was fixed had moved. Morocco had proved that African teams could go to a World Cup and genuinely compete for the title. Four near misses, four quarterfinals, and now one semi-final. The story of African football at the World Cup is not a story of failure. It is a story of a ceiling that keeps getting higher and a continent that keeps pressing against it. But here is the thing about ceilings: at some point you have to break through. For the first time in history, Africa is sending 10 teams to a World Cup. That number matters. It means more African football on the world's biggest stage, more chances for upsets, more opportunities for African players to announce themselves to global audiences, and with a new format, 48 teams, 12 groups of four, with the top two of all groups, plus the eight best third place teams advancing. That means that even finishing third in a group might be enough to survive. Now let's go through the teams that are going and what they will face. But first there are the notable absences. Nigeria did not qualify. The Super Eagles three-time African champions finished behind South Africa in their qualifying group. Cameroon, who started all of this in 1990, did not qualify either. So when you hear about Africa's best chances of winning this World Cup, just understand that two of the continent's biggest names are watching from home. Now, on to the 10. Morocco are Africa's highest ranked team. They have been drowned in a group with Brazil, Scotland, and Haiti, which is honestly an open group, and they should be able to move through. But there is one significant complication. Walid Regraghi, the coach who took them to the last World Cup semi-final and the last Afghan final, has resigned. Senegal, the reigning African champions, who have also won two of the last three Afghans, will face France in their group stage. A rematch of the 2002 opener that Senegal won. Edouard Mendi, Kali Dukuliballi, and Eliman Jai give Senegal genuine quality across the squad. Egypt have more salah. That sentence should do an enormous amount of work. Egypt had never gone beyond the last 16 at a World Cup. But this might be Salah's last realistic chance to change that. Egypt will face Belgium, Iran and New Zealand in a group that is genuinely open. Cote d'Ivoire will also fancy their chances of getting out of their group. South Africa have the honor and the weight of playing the tournament's opening match against Mexico. It is a rematch of the 2002 tournament opener when the two sides drew 1-1 in Johannesburg. Algeria, Tunisia, Ghana, Cap Verde, and DR Congo complete the 10. Ghana will face England and Croatia in what will be a fierce test. Algeria, with a talented squad and a strong recent Afghan form, will believe that they can advance. DR Congo, who secured their place through the intercontinental playoff with a last-minute win over Jamaica, will also fancy their chances in a group that is open, though they will have to face Portugal. Ten African teams, 10 sets of fans, 10 stories, more African football at a World Cup than has ever happened before, and a format that for the first time gives a team that plays solidly but does not top its group a genuine path to the last 32. Now I want to be honest here rather than just being optimistic because African football deserves honesty as much as it deserves hope. Winning a World Cup requires several things to align simultaneously. Squad depth, because in a tournament of seven games in four to five, six weeks, injuries and suspensions will test every team. A capable coach with a clear tactical identity is also a necessity. But there is also something about luck when it comes to favorable knockout draws. And the other thing which I think matters the most is a kind of collective belief that cannot be manufactured. But it can be built slowly through years of playing together. Senegal have the most complete chance. Morocco remain formidable and can get through. Egypt has a Mohammed Salah. He can be extraordinary, but he is also 33. And a World Cup of extraordinary intensity that can be a ceiling. Here is what I actually believe. Winning a World Cup is still the hardest thing in sport. Argentina hadn't won it since 1986 before they did in 2022. Italy missed three consecutive World Cups. Germany has failed to get out of the group stage at the last two World Cups. These are nations with deep football infrastructure, large professional leagues, and decades of development. African football has world-class individual players. It has shown it can produce tactical systems that can compete with the best. What it doesn't yet consistently have is the institutional infrastructure, the fully funded domestic leagues, the development academies, the coaching pipelines that turn great players into winning teams across generations. That is changing. Investment in African football is increasing from both internal and external sources, the gap is narrowing. But right now, in June 2026, with these ten teams, the honest answer to can Africa win the World Cup is maybe. But for the first time, that maybe does not feel like a peaceful thinking. Now I want to tell you something that is not really about football. When Ghana played in Johannesburg in 2010, when Asamoa Jean walked up to that penalty spot in front of a stadium that was mostly African, there was something in that air that had nothing to do with a football score. People were watching across the continent, in bars, in living rooms, and in the street. People who had never been to South Africa, people whose countries had no team in that tournament, people who felt in some way they couldn't fully articulate that Ghana was carrying something for all of them. When Asamoajian hit the crossbar, the sound that came out of people across West Africa was not a sout. It was something lower, a collective exhale, a grief that surprised the people who felt it. Because it wasn't just about football, it wasn't just about a football match. It never was. The World Cup is the most watched sport event on earth. Billions of people won trophy, and for a continent that has given the world some of its greatest footballers, DJ Drogpa, Samuel Eto, George Weya, Nuanko Kanu, J.J. Okacha, Roger Mila himself, and now a generation that includes Mo Salah, Sergio Mane, Victor Osiman. The fact that no African team has ever stood on that final podium is something people feel. Quietly, persistently, on the back of every tournament, they feel it. It is not the most important thing in the world. There are countries in this continent where people are going to sleep hungry tonight, where hospitals don't have medicines, where the institutions that are supposed to protect people are failing them. A football trophy will not fix any of that. But symbols matter. They matter because of what they say about who belongs at the highest table, who is counted as capable of the ultimate achievement, whose excellence the world is prepared to celebrate without qualification, without asterisk, without but they haven't won the big one yet. When Kofi Anand became Secretary General of the United Nations, when Nelson Mandela worked out of Victor Veste prison, when Morocco's players knelt in prayer in Qatar and a continent prayed with them, these were not just individual moments. They were signals about what is possible, about who gets to define what is possible. An African team winning the World Cup would be that kind of signal sent to a child watching in Dakar or Kinsasa or Casablanca or Accra or Johannesburg sent to the world saying the people who built football whose players have graced every great club on earth for half a century were always good enough. And we are here, we have been here, and now the trophy says so. Ten teams, North America, June 2026. The wait has been long, the near misses have been painful, the moment hasn't come yet, but it is closer than it has ever been. I am Amadou. This is Learning Africa.