FIFA WORLD CUP

 

 

The FIFA World Cup is a global football event that takes place every four years. The event is a quadrennial international men’s football championship played between the senior national teams of FIFA member countries. The next  FIFA World Cup will be taking place in Qatar from November 20 to December 18, 2022. The Qatar World Cup will be the 22^nd tournament since the competition started in 1930.

African national teams

Of the 54 current FIFA and CAF members, only 13 African national teams have been to the world cup the remaining 41 teams have never participated in the FIFA world cup. The number of African national teams participating in the world cup will change after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. As there will be changes to the number of national teams that will be participating in the next World Cup.   FIFA has chosen to raise the number of participating nations from 32 to 48 teams.

 

Facts about African National Teams 

These are important facts you need to know about African national teams going to FIFA World Cup in Qatar 2022.

1. This will be the first time that all the African countries going to the world cup will be coached by an African.

African Team   — Their coaches

• Senegal:   Aliou Cisse
• Ghana:     Otto Addo
• Cameroon:  Rigobert Song
• Tunisia:       Jalel Kadri
• Morroco: Walid Regragui

2. Out of all the African National teams going to the Qatar 2022 world cup, it’s only the Tunisia National Team that has never qualified out of the group stages of a world cup.

• Cameroon qualified out of the group stage in Italy “in 1990”.
• Ghana qualified out of the group stage in Germany in 2006 and South Africa in 2010.
• Morroco qualified out of the group stage in Mexico in 1986.
• Senegal qualified out of the group stage in Korea & Japan in 2002

3. Senegal National Team is the only African national team to have the lowest appearance (3 times) among the African teams that qualified for the country’s 2022 world cup in Qatar. Senegal qualified for 2002, 2018 and now 2022.

4. Cameroon National Team holds the highest appearance at the world cup among the five African national teams that qualified for Qatar 2022. Cameroon appeared at the world cup in 1982, 1990, 1994,1998,2002, 2010 and 2014.

More facts

5. Morroco and Tunisia National Teams have a joint number of appearances at the world cup. Both teams have appeared in the world 6 times each, making them the two Arab African countries with the highest appearance at the world cup.

• Morrocco (1970, 1986, 1994,1998,2018 and 2022)
• Tunisia (1978, 1988, 2002, 2006, 2018 and 2022)

6. Tunisia is the first African national team to win a game at the world cup. This happened at the 1978 world cup in Argentina when they defeated Mexico 3 goals to 1 despite trailing Mexico 1-0 at halftime.

7. Among the five African countries, Cameroon is the first African country to qualify for the quarter-finals of the world cup and that was at the 1990 World Cup in Italy where they lost to England in the Quarterfinals.

8. Morroco is the first team in Africa to play at the world cup and that was in 1970.

9. The Cameroonian coach Robert Song is the only player from Africa to have received a red card in two different world cups. Robert Song received a red card in Brazil in 1994 and Chile in 1998

10. Robert Song the Cameroonian coach holds the most cap player for Cameroon with 137 appearances (1993-2010) why the president of the Cameroon national football association is Cameroon’s highest goal scorer with 56 goals from 118caps (1997-2014).

African national team in their world cup group

The 2022 World Cup will begin with 32 teams in eight groups of four:

GROUPS           TEAMS 

     A:                  Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, Netherlands

     B:                  England, Iran, USA, Wales

     C:                  Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland

     D:                  France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia

     E:                   Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan

     F:                   Belgium, Canada, Morocco, Croatia

    G:                    Brazil, Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon

    H:                    Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea