KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The 202X FIFA World Cup has already cemented a historic milestone for African football, as the continent secured an unprecedented nine spots in the tournament’s knockout Round of 32. Yet despite this breakthrough, seven of the nine African sides exited the competition in their opening knockout fixture, leaving just Morocco and Egypt to carry the hopes of the entire continent into the Round of 16.
Ghana, the final African team to kick off its Round of 32 match on Friday, suffered a quiet 1-0 defeat to Colombia, ending the Black Stars’ tournament run. That left Morocco — which captured global attention with a shock run to the World Cup semifinals in Qatar 2022 — and Egypt to compete for places in the final quarterfinals. Morocco is set to face Canada in the first Round of 16 matchup on Saturday in Houston, while Egypt earned its spot after a tense penalty shootout victory over Australia earlier Friday, and will face Lionel Messi’s defending champion Argentina in Atlanta on Tuesday.
The tournament already served up one of its most thrilling matches on Friday, when tiny Cape Verde — an African island nation off West Africa — pushed Argentina to extra time, coming within minutes of a historic upset that would have eliminated the defending champions. Argentina ultimately edged out the underdogs 3-2 to advance.
For African football, the nine-team Round of 32 haul already marks a historic achievement that has never been matched before. Previously, the maximum number of African sides to reach the Round of 16 was two: Senegal and Morocco in 2022, and Algeria and Nigeria at the 2014 Brazil World Cup — both times, the two advancing African sides were eliminated in their first Round of 16 fixture.
“It’s a source of great pride so many African teams qualified for the round of 32,” said Sébastien Desabre, head coach of Congo.
Many across the African football ecosystem have framed the 202X tournament as a turning point, pushing back against longstanding skepticism about African nations’ competitiveness at top global football competitions.“For a long time, African nations have been doubted in what they can do at major competitions,” Ghana forward Brandon Thomas-Asante said earlier this week, “and I’m glad to see so much success among all the African nations, and it just shows how much talent there is all across the world, and Africa is no different.”
Even in defeat, most of the eliminated African sides earned praise for their competitive performances against top-ranked global opposition. Congo held a lead over England for most of their knockout match before Harry Kane scored two late goals to secure a comeback win for the Three Lions. Senegal pushed 202X contenders Belgium all the way to extra time, conceding a winning goal only in the final seconds of stoppage time after Belgium notched two late equalizers in regulation. Ivory Coast remained level with Norway until Erling Haaland’s 86th-minute strike put Norway through to the next round.
The only other eliminations came for South Africa, who fell to a low-scoring defeat to Canada, and Algeria, who lost to Switzerland after failing to find the back of the net — a fate that also befell Ghana against Colombia.
“Well, all teams that get to the Round of 32 have the will to go forward,” said Algeria head coach Vladimir Petkovic. “Some get there wanting to continue — wanting to continue their adventure — and others will be happy (just to be there). There are certain teams that are a lot stronger on paper, but at this World Cup, we realize you can’t really be sure of anything. You can’t be sure that the strong teams will prevail over the less strong ones. We’ve had several examples of that.”
The remaining two African sides now look to break the longstanding Round of 16 barrier, aiming to become the first tournament where three African nations advance to the quarterfinals, building on the historic foundation set by this year’s breakout qualifying run.