IVORY COAST
The Ivorians have the makings of a team that could be a force for some time to come in the African game, with exciting talent in both defence and up front, balanced by an experienced midfield.
Ousmane Diao, Odilon Kossounou and Evans Ndicka are promising young defenders, while Amad Diallo, Yan Diao and Bazoumana Toure represent a new breed of emerging strikers.
These promising players are balanced by a hard-working midfield, where former Barcelona and AC Milan hardman Franck Kessie and Nottingham Forest’s Ibrahim Sangare offer leadership and drive.
Along with Tunisia, the Ivory Coast became the first team in World Cup qualifying history to complete qualifying, with more than six matches played, without conceding a goal. They scored 25 times, 16 of them against hapless Seychelles, including a record 9-0 win at home at the start of the preliminaries. It is the biggest winning margin in an African World Cup qualifier.
As a result, they are back at the World Cup after failing to qualify for the last two finals in Russia and Qatar, although in that period they were crowned African champions on the back of a remarkable comeback story.
They suffered a humiliating loss in the group stage of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations finals, fired their coach Jean-Louis Gasset, replaced him with assistant Emerse Fae and only advanced to the knockout stages by the slimmest of margins. But they then scrapped and battled their way to the title in a fairytale turnaround on home soil.
The Elephants suffered something of a hangover once their ‘golden generation’ of Didier Drogba, Kolo and Yaya Toure, and Gervinho peaked with success at the 2015 Cup of Nations finals.
Failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia as reigning continental champions was a setback, as they were edged out by Morocco. In their qualifying bid for the 2022 finals in Qatar, they did not make the final-round play-off, finishing behind Cameroon in the group.
But they have since rebuilt and introduced a bevy of exciting new players who give them every chance of advancing through their group at the World Cup and into the knockout stage.
The key will be their opening group E game against Ecuador in Philadelphia, which is followed by a clash with Germany and then Curaçao.
Past World Cup appearances: 2006, 2010, 2014
World Cup record: : P9 W3 D1 L5 GF13 GA13
Top scorer in qualifiers: Sekou Fofana (3 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Simon Adingra, Franck Kessie (both 10 matches)
ALGERIA
Algeria have a history of ruffling feathers at the World Cup, and they will have to be at their disruptive best if they are to progress past the first stage at the upcoming finals in Canada, Mexico and the US
The North Africans have been drawn in Group J with Argentina, Austria and Jordan, opening their tournament against the defending champions in Kansas City on 16 June.
This will be Algeria’s fifth World Cup finals appearance, but their first since Brazil in 2014, where they got past the group stage and gave Germany a fright in the round of 16, taking them to extra time in Porto Alegre before Mesut Özil scored seconds before the tie was headed to a penalty shootout.
But they are best remembered for their debut in 1982 in Spain, when they beat West Germany in their first outing and were then infamously squeezed out of the second round in a fixed game between the Germans and Austrians that was known as the ‘Disgrace of Gijon’.
It led to a change in the rules, after which Fifa dictated that all final-round group matches be played at the same time to avoid any collusion and prior knowledge of permutations.
Playing Austria again, when they meet in Kansas City on 27 June, will remind the world of the scandal and the injustice committed against African football.
Algeria’s qualification for their latest finals appearance came easily, with eight wins in their 10 group matches, as they finished seven points above second-placed Uganda and had booked their place at the 2026 finals well before the preliminaries were completed. Bundesliga-based striker Mohammed Amoura was the top scorer in the African qualifiers with 10 goals.
It is also a return to the finals for Vladimir Petkovic, the Bosnian-born Croat, who led Switzerland to the 2018 finals and also two European Championships, including eliminating France and reaching the quarterfinals in 2020.
Petkovic has now had two years in charge of Algeria, taking over shortly after their disastrous Cup of Nations showing in Ivory Coast in early 2024, where they did not get past the first round.
They did much better in Morocco at the start of this year, although they were thoroughly outplayed by Nigeria in the quarterfinal in Marrakech and fell short of expectations.
Algeria continue to lean heavily on players born in France, where their expatriate population is estimated at some five million. Their 23-man squad that won the 2019 Cup of Nations boasted 14 French-born players.
Past World Cup appearances: 1982, 1986, 2010, 2014
World Cup record: : P13 W3 D3 L7 GF13 GA19
Top scorer in qualifiers: Mohammed Amoura (10 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Mohammed Amoura, Aissa Mandi (both 10 matches)
CAPE VERDE
Although World Cup qualification for a country with a population of little over 600 000 is something of a fairytale, the Cape Verdeans have shown their prowess for more than a decade, from the time they qualified for their first Africa Cup of Nations in 2013.
They held hosts Bafana Bafana to a goalless draw in the opening game at Soccer City and went on to reach the quarterfinals at their first attempt.
They have been back to two more continental championships, and in Ivory Coast two years ago, were most unfortunate not to get to the semifinals, outplaying South Africa in the last eight but exiting after post-match penalties, where the heroics of Ronwen Williams denied them.
In qualifying for this year’s World Cup, they topped their group four points ahead of Cameroon, who are the African country with the most World Cup appearances, with eight.
They were in the running to qualify for the 2014 tournament in Brazil, upsetting Tunisia in their group to advance to the 10-team play-offs, but were then disqualified for fielding an ineligible player in defender Fernando Varela, who had not completed a four-match ban.
It has been an astonishing rise, as Cape Verde only joined Fifa in 1986 and up to 1992, had only played in the regional Amilcar Cabral Cup for countries in West Africa.
In 1992, they competed in the Cup of Nations qualifiers for the first time and, 10 years later, took their first tilt at the World Cup in the qualifiers for the 2002 finals in Japan and South Korea.
They have risen to as high as 27th in the FIFA rankings and will go to the finals intent on more than just participation, although they are paired in one of the toughest groups against Spain, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay.
Cape Verde’s national team is emblematic of a fast-changing world, one of record migration and shifting populations that has allowed a tiny island nation to put together a competitive team.
The migration of people from the arid island archipelago off the west coast of Africa has been constant for centuries, heading to former colonial power Portugal, the east coast of the United States, France, Luxembourg and, through their seafaring skills, the harbour city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where they draw many of their players from.
It is from these disparate emigrant groups that Cape Verde has put together a team that has taken the country from the status of occasional participants just over half a century ago to World Cup finalists.
Past World Cup appearances: None
World Cup record: : -
Top scorer in qualifiers: Dailon Livramento (4 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Vozinha (10 matches)
DR CONGO
The Democratic Republic of Congo came through a lengthy qualifying campaign to book their berth at the finals in Canada, Mexico and the US, and in the process forged a closely knit team that has overcome adversity and will now be looking to make an impact at the World Cup.
In the process, they return to the tournament for the first time in 52 years, with an opportunity to set right the image of folly and naivety they left behind in 1974.
The country was then known as Zaire and they became only the third African country to compete at the World Cup, but suffered a 9-0 loss to Yugoslavia amid three defeats and were dispatched amid much derision.
African football has come a long way since then, but this is Congo’s first chance to set the record straight and prove they have become a consistent and doggedly determined unit that could make an impact on the 2026 finals.
It was in September last year that goals from their key twin front pairing of Cedric Bakambu and Yoane Wissa had them 2-0 up at home in Kinshasa over Senegal in their qualifying group and on course to finish top and grab an automatic place at the finals as one of the nine African group winners.
Senegal fought back, however, to win 3-2 and DR Congo ultimately finished runners-up in the group with seven wins from 10 games and a 22-point haul, enough to ensure they went to the November play-offs as one of the four best runners-up across the nine groups.
At the mini-tournament in Morocco, they edged Cameroon with a stoppage-time goal from skipper Chancel Mbemba to advance to the play-off final in Rabat three days later, where they fought back after conceding in the third minute to Nigeria and won on post-match penalties after a 1-1 stalemate.
That earned them a place in the inter-confederation play-off in Mexico in March, where they again went to extra time before Axel Tuanzebe steered home a corner for them to eliminate Jamaica. To be fair, the Congolese merited their win with the greater number of chances and have the potential to be a difficult side when they meet Colombia, Portugal and Uzbekistan in group K in June.
Past World Cup appearances: 1974
World Cup record: : P3 W0 D0 L3 GF0 GA14
Top scorer in qualifiers: Cedric Bakambu (4 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Chancel Mbemba (12 matches)
SENEGAL
Senegal are the African continent’s best hope for success at the World Cup, going to the tournament with a squad that not only has a powerful starting lineup, but is also packed with depth, with plenty of impact players able to come off the bench.
It was this lack of range in ability that held back previous African hopes, but it is also what makes Senegal such a tantalisingly exciting prospect.
They will, however, be immediately tested in a tough programme that begins with a clash against France in New York on 16 June and then against Norway six days later.
A game against France always has the added dimension of getting one over the former colonial power, and there has only ever been one meeting between the two nations, when Senegal upset the reigning world champions in the opening game of the 2002 World Cup in Seoul.
That team went on to reach the quarterfinals, matching the best African achievement at a World Cup, which Cameroon had set a decade earlier.
Since then, Senegal have been to two more World Cups, heartbreakingly eliminated on fair play points when they tied Japan for second place in their group in Russia in 2018.
They did get out of the group phase in Qatar four years ago, but England handed them a heavy beating in the first knockout round.
Sadio Mane, who turns 34 in early April, remains the talisman for the team despite his advancing years. Speculation that he had lost much of his X-factor after moving to Saudi Arabia proved wildly off the mark at the Cup of Nations finals in Morocco, where he was named best player.
Senegal won the tournament but have since had their title stripped from them, although they are expected to be reinstated as African champions once their appeal is heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
They methodically advanced through the tournament in Morocco, picking up momentum and being able to display the variety of ability in a deep squad that coach Pape Bouna Thiaw had at his disposal.
Walking off in a fit of pique during the Cup of Nations final in Rabat in January will forever be a stain on the Senegalese reputation, but there is no doubt they were the best side at the tournament.
Past World Cup appearances: 2002, 2018, 2022
World Cup record: : P12 W5 D3 L4 GF16 GA17
Top scorer in qualifiers: Sadio Mane (5 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Kalidou Koulibaly, Pape Matar Sarr (both 10 matches)
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa overcame a woeful administrative oversight to qualify for a fourth World Cup finals appearance, but their first since hosting the finals 16 years ago.
Midfielder Teboho Mokoena was fielded in a qualifier against neighbours Lesotho in March last year despite having to sit out a one-match ban for an accumulation of yellow cards.
Fielding a suspended player always sees the opponents handed a 3-0 victory, but it took world football’s governing body Fifa an eternity to dock points from Bafana Bafana, to the fury of the other teams in their group, who claimed they might have approached key matches differently had the punishment been imposed months earlier, as it should have been.
Fifa has never explained the delay, but it could be because their own system failed to signal that Mokoena was supposed to be suspended when he was included on the South African team sheet.
There was an uproar in the country, and fingers were pointed at team manager Vincent Tseka, who had a previous history of foibles. But that was unfair, given that keeping a check on possible suspensions often dictates team selection, and so the responsibility ultimately lay with coach Hugo Broos, who eventually put his hand up and accepted responsibility before quickly telling journalists to “move on”.
Despite the three-point sanction, South Africa still qualified one point ahead of Nigeria, who started the campaign horribly and failed to catch up, even with a late flourish. It is not the first time South Africa have finished ahead of Nigeria in a qualifying group, which points to their potential, often shackled by the constraints of poor organisation and leadership.
Bafana Bafana will meet co-hosts Mexico in the opening game on 11 June, as they did at Soccer City in Johannesburg in 2010, and then face the Czech Republic in Atlanta and South Korea in Monterrey.
They will have a legitimate hope of advancing past the first round for the first time, emulating the achievement of the women’s team Banyana Banyana at the last Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Broos will name his squad on 21 May, with no surprises expected in a selection that will be dominated by players from Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates. South Africa are one of the few African teams with a dominance of domestic-based players.
Past World Cup appearances: 1998, 2002, 2010
World Cup record: : P9 W2 D4 L3 GF11 GA16
Top scorer in qualifiers: Jayden Adams, Oswin Appollis, Lyle Foster, Thapelo Morena (all 2 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Ronwen Williams (10 matches)
GHANA
Ghana have been forced to almost start from scratch ahead of the World Cup with the sacking of Otto Addo as coach and the appointment of veteran Carlos Queiroz in his place.
The 73-year-old Portuguese, with his South African assistant Roger de Sa, will have little time to put together a side for the finals, where the Black Stars are arguably the African side with the toughest group, going up against Croatia, England and Panama in group L in matches in Toronto, Boston and Philadelphia.
There is also the strong likelihood that key midfielder Mohammed Kudus will miss the finals after suffering a hamstring injury on club duty with Tottenham Hotspur, with Ghanaians desperately hoping he will recover in time, but the prognosis does not look good.
Ghana have played only four matches since qualifying last October as the top-placed side in their group, finishing ahead of Madagascar and Mali.
They lost to Japan and South Korea in November, and defeats by Austria and Germany in March saw Addo unceremoniously sacked. He was never a convincing figure as coach, having failed to qualify the team for the Africa Cup of Nations finals in Morocco, where Ghana lost out on invaluable game time.
Ghana have been one of the better achievers on the continental stage and had won four Cup of Nations titles before their first World Cup qualification, storming from behind to edge South Africa out of top place in their group to reach the 2006 finals in Germany.
Their maiden appearance saw them advance past the first round and into the last 16, but it was in South Africa in 2010 that they left an indelible mark.
They came agonisingly close to becoming the first African team to reach a World Cup semifinal, denied by a cynical handball from Luis Suarez and a subsequent penalty miss from Asamoah Gyan in a dramatic finish to the quarterfinal tie against Uruguay at Soccer City.
Ghana were the last surviving African side at the first World Cup hosted on the continent and, after Bafana Bafana crashed out early, home fans adopted them as their favourite team, giving them the moniker ‘Baghana Baghana’.
Past World Cup appearances: 2006, 2010, 2014, 2022
World Cup record: : P14 W5 D3 L7 GF18 GA23
Top scorer in qualifiers: Jordan Ayew (7 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Jordan Ayew, Mohamed Kudus, Antoine Semenyo (all 10 matches)
TUNISIA
Tunisia will be appearing at their seventh World Cup, the joint second-most by an African nation, along with Morocco. Only Cameroon, with eight finals appearances, has been to more World Cups.
Last December, the Tunisians extended their record for most successive Africa Cup of Nations finals appearances to 17, although they have only ever been crowned continental champions once, when they hosted the tournament in 2004.
Consistency, therefore, is the byword for the small North African nation, which, in qualifying for the 2026 finals, set a new record, later matched by England and the Ivory Coast, of not conceding a goal in a World Cup qualifying campaign.
Tunisia went through their 10 matches in African Zone group H with nine wins and a single draw and finished 13 points ahead of second-placed Namibia. It was, admittedly, an easy group for them, with Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Malawi and tiny Sao Tome e Principe never going to be too tough a proposition.
But after a poor Cup of Nations tournament in Morocco at the start of the year, they fired coach Sami Trabelsi and replaced him with former French international Sabri Lamouchi, who is of Tunisian heritage.
On the World Cup stage, Tunisia were the first African country to win a match at the finals when they came from behind to beat Mexico 3-1 in Rosario, Argentina, in 1978.
At the last finals in Qatar, they produced a sensational 1-0 win over France in their final group game, although it was not enough for them to advance to the next round. The performance, however, was one of great passion, fuelled by a large expatriate crowd, and indicated what Tunisia are capable of when they have the right motivation.
To be fair, their World Cup record is patchy, with three wins, the other against Panama in Russia in 2018 in a dead-rubber match, in 18 fixtures with 10 defeats.
But they are not to be underestimated, with a long history of punching above their weight.
Tunisia’s population of some 12 million means playing resources are tight, but the national team benefits from a strong domestic league and Tunisian clubs are consistent challengers for honours in the two African club competitions.
Past World Cup appearances: 1978, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2018, 2022
World Cup record: : P18 W3 D5 L10 GF14 GA26
Top scorer in qualifiers: Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane (4 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Montassar Talbi (10 matches)
EGYPT
Egypt were the first African country to compete at the World Cup, in Italy in 1934, but played only a single game in that tournament, losing to Hungary in Naples before catching the boat back home across the Mediterranean.
Their World Cup return, for only a fourth appearance at the finals, comes in a completely different era of sporting glitz and glamour and a highly competitive environment where the Pharaohs will have hopes of advancing past the first stage.
They line up in group G with Belgium, Iran and New Zealand, sweating in the last month before the finals on the fitness of talisman Mohamed Salah, who has had some injury alarm bells in the last weeks of his final season at Liverpool.
The 33-year-old scored nine goals in as many matches in the qualifiers, finishing as the second-highest scorer in the African preliminaries.
The tournament is a swansong for Salah, for so long a talisman for the team who has proven unable to replicate his club success at the national team level.
In his time with Egypt, they lost two Cup of Nations finals in 2017 and again in 2021, and were semifinalists at the latest edition in Morocco earlier this year.
It is something of an anomaly that the Egyptians are the most successful footballing country on the African continent, with a record seven Cup of Nations titles, plus fabled Cairo club Al Ahly’s record 12 Champions League successes, yet their World Cup record is dismal in comparison.
Besides their early appearance almost a century ago, Egypt also competed at the 1990 finals, sharing a tough group with England, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, and also went to the 2018 finals in Russia, where they were eliminated within the first week of action.
Egypt have yet to win a game at the World Cup, missing their best chance in an Arab derby with Saudi Arabia in Volgograd in 2018 when they conceded five minutes into stoppage time at the end and went home with three defeats.
They will be targeting their matches against New Zealand in Vancouver on 21 June and Iran five days later in Seattle to break their World Cup duck and allow them to advance to the knockout stages.
Past World Cup appearances: 1934, 1990, 2018
World Cup record: : P7 W0 D2 L5 GF5 GA12
Top scorer in qualifiers: Mohamed Salah (9 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Mostafa Mohamed, Mahmoud Trezeguet, Ahmed Zizo (all 10 matches)
MOROCCO
Morocco set a new standard for African football when they became the first country from the continent to reach the World Cup semifinals with a heady run to the last four at the 2022 finals in Qatar.
They eliminated the likes of Belgium, Portugal and Spain and, in the process, thrilled African and Arab fans with their progress, cheered on by vast swathes of red-clad supporters in their matches.
It was an absorbing spectacle that lit up the tournament and affirmed the massive strides that African teams have made in the international arena over the decades.
Four years on, Morocco will feel the pressure to try to replicate that feat with a heavy burden of expectation that could prove onerous.
Already, the exacting demands of the fans saw the departure of coach Walid Regragui, who suffered abuse from his own supporters on several occasions during the Africa Cup of Nations finals in December and January and wanted out.
The Cup of Nations was supposed to be a coronation of sorts for the Moroccans, who had only one previous continental crown from a half-century earlier but were on a record-breaking run of 19 successive international wins and firmly established as the top-ranked team on the continent.
It proved anything but, ending in much controversy, and the primary consequence of failure to win the final match against Senegal has been the change of coach, with 49-year-old Mohamed Ouahbi stepping up from the under-23 side.
He debuted in charge in the March friendlies against Ecuador and Paraguay, but will have little time to change much before Morocco’s opening game at the tournament in North America against five-time champions Brazil on 13 June.
The North Africans will also face Scotland and Haiti in group C of the tournament.
It must be remembered, however, that Regragui took charge in August 2022, just three months before the Qatar World Cup, and that did not seem to have a detrimental effect on Morocco’s performance at all.
They will have a talented squad at their disposal, with many key elements from the Qatar heroics, but also several new faces too.
Past World Cup appearances: 1970, 1986, 1994, 1998, 2018, 2022
World Cup record: : P23 W5 D7 L11 GF20 GA27
Top scorer in qualifiers: Ayoub El Kaabi (4 goals)
Player most used in qualifiers: Yassine Bounou (8 matches)