Africa achieves 37 victories in the history of the World Cup
With the start of the 2026 World Cup finals approaching, historical statistics published by FIFA shed light on the path of African teams in the most prestigious global football competitions.
Since the first participation of an African team, Egypt, in the World Cup finals in 1934, representatives of the African continent played 162 matches until the end of the Qatar 2022 edition, during which they achieved 37 wins and 41 draws, compared to 84 defeats.
With a success rate of 23 percent, Africa ranks third among continental federations in terms of the number of victories, behind the European Football Confederation (468 victories), the South American Football Confederation (185 victories), the Confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean (34 victories), the Asian Football Confederation (25 victories), and the Oceania Football Confederation (one victory).
Nigeria is the team with the most victories in the history of the World Cup among African teams, with six victories, ahead of four teams with five victories each: Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco and Senegal.
Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Tunisia achieved three victories each, while South Africa has two victories.
The “Greens” achieved their three victories against Germany (2-1) and Chile (3-2) during the 1982 World Cup in Spain, then against South Korea (4-2) in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
African football has witnessed several notable milestones throughout the history of the World Cup, as Cameroon was the first African team to reach the quarter-finals in 1990, before Senegal (2002) and Ghana (2010) achieved similar achievements.
As a reminder, during its last participation in the 2014 World Cup, Algeria was able to qualify for the first time in its history to the quarter-finals, before being defeated by Germany, which later won the world title, with a score of (2-1) after extra time.
With the participation of ten African teams in the 2026 World Cup, thanks to the expansion of the tournament to 48 teams, the continent will have an unprecedented opportunity to improve its historical record and enhance its presence among the world’s top teams. Africa will be represented in the 23rd edition of the 2026 World Cup, by ten teams: South Africa, Algeria, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal and Tunisia.
