Pelé said that an African national team would have won the World Cup before 2000. He was wrong. In this edition, 10 teams will take the field but, in the United States, they are facing more than one “external” problem. Let’s take stock
Africa. Will it finally be the Africa World Cup? We’ve been asking ourselves this question for almost 40 years, and the positive answer never comes. Sporadic exploits, the quarter-finals of Senegal in 2002, of Ghana in 2010, up to Morocco’s first historic semi-final in Qatar. Flashes that continue to dazzle, to make us think that sooner or later the prophecy of O Rei Pelé who said that an African would win the World Cup before 2000 will come true. He was wrong, and the date of the imposition of the African movement is continually postponed. Here, in this American World Cup, the African continent presents itself in force, even 10 teams, double compared to 4 years ago and 40% more than the record of 2010, when South Africa organized the Cup and Africa had 6 teams. They were disastrous, Ghana aside. And while we’re talking about South Africa, Bafana Bafana’s continental debut at this 2026 Cup was horrible. Hugo Broos’ national team, made up largely of kids from the local league, seemed downright embarrassing against Mexico. Many steps backwards compared to the draw between the same opponents that inaugurated the 2010 Cup.
without a winner
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Tomorrow it’s Morocco’s turn, one of the two best teams on the continent. After the World Cup semi-final he had a bad African Cup of Nations in 2023, and in the following one, played at home last January, he reached the final with the other great African national team of the moment, Senegal. Who won the absurd last act only to then lose the title by default, with inevitable appeal to the Swiss court. Almost 5 months after the shameful final, Africa still doesn’t have a definitive champion. And he enters this World Cup with hopes and frustrations. Senegal and Ivory Coast are countries blacklisted by the Trump administration, so fans will not be able to follow their national teams. Then there was the case of the Somali referee Artan, interrogated for 11 hours at the American border and sent back to his home despite being in possession of a diplomatic passport. The best African referee of 2025 is persona non grata, and even if FIFA says it can do nothing in the face of the host country’s border policy in Africa they are outraged. Curiously, the United States allowed Thomas Partey, the Ghanaian accused of rape, to enter England in an open case, while Canada refused him a visa for the match against Panama in Toronto. And then there were the decidedly invasive, if not humiliating, searches to which Senegal was subjected upon his arrival in the United States.
furious media
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The African media is furious. They expected, or at least hoped, that the refereeing profession would show solidarity with the Somali whistleblower blocked at the border. They applauded UEFA’s initiative to entrust them with the European Super Cup, but there is no comparison between the two competitions. In Africa they smell a very strong smell of racism, and they protest loudly. On the pitch the continent is united, and actually on paper the national teams that can do well are different: in addition to Morocco and Senegal, Ivory Coast, Congo, Algeria and Egypt also have interesting lineups. Ghana can grow. What has arrived in America is a very European Africa, at least by birth: of the 260 players called up by the 10 national teams on the continent, 115 were born on our continent: 44%. In the Democratic Republic of Congo and Morocco they are 20 out of 26, almost 77%. Kids who grew up in Europe who want to bring Africa to the top of the world. A nice thought, let’s see how it goes and if African football will finally manage to establish itself as a whole.
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