Thursday, March 28

Africa World Cup qualifying: Schedule, predictions and what to know as 10 nations battle for five spots


And then there were 10. Qualifying for the World Cup from Africa is more difficult than your daily Wordle, and there are five spots available at Qatar 2022 for a continent brimming with talent. For example, Ivory Coast and South Africa will not qualify as they were knocked out in the second round.

Now let’s get to what we came for. The stage is set. There are some huge, excuse me, colossal matchups in the African World Cup qualifier third round in the coming week. It goes to show that qualifying from the African continent is probably the most difficult in all of football.

How did we get here?

Qualifying began Sept. 4, 2019. The FIFA World Rankings of July 2019 were used to determine which nations would compete in the first round. The current FIFA rankings were used to seed the second and third-round draws.

After the grind of the second round, we are here in the third and final round. The teams will play two legs (first legs on Friday; second legs on Tuesday), home and away. Win or don’t qualify, it’s that simple.

Africa World Cup qualifying schedule

First legs set for Friday, March 25

  • DR Congo vs. Morocco, 11 a.m. ET
  • Mali vs. Tunisia, 1 p.m. ET
  • Cameroon vs. Algeria, 1 p.m. ET
  • Ghana vs. Nigeria, 3:30 p.m. ET
  • Egypt vs. Senegal, 3:30 p.m. ET

Look at those fixtures, you have a rematch of the AFCON final, you have two African giants going head to head, then there’s two West African nations who have nothing but love and disdain for each other. It is going to be mouthwatering for a few days. Now let’s break down the matches one by one.

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Egypt vs. Senegal
Revenge, revenge, whatever you want to call it, Egypt will be seeking it. They lost on penalties in the AFCON final to Senegal in February, which makes this match even spicier. Egypt manager Carlos Queiroz will be on the sideline this time around, as he was suspended for the final. Senegal will have added confidence being kings of the continent. History may not be on Egypt’s side, they are known for winning AFCON and not qualifying for the World Cup. In 2018, it was their first time they qualified for the World Cup since 1990.

Cameroon vs Algeria
Algeria will be trying to bounce back from their shambolic showing at AFCON, when they did not make it out of the group stage. They kept their manager and will be facing a talented Cameroon side who fired their manager and replaced him with country legend, Rigobert Song. Cameroon will be looking to make their record eighth World Cup appearance but they will be facing an Algerian side that wants to avenge their disgraceful AFCON showing.

Ghana vs. Nigeria
Where do I even begin with this one? This tie is huge. Whoever decided to make these fixtures was a mad scientist and was enjoying the chaos. Ghana will want to show up and show out. They were poor in AFCON, and fired their manager, replacing him and his staff with Otto Addo, Chris Hughton, Didi Dramani and George Boateng. This is a fierce rivalry with 56 previous meetings. Nigeria added former player Emmanuel Amuneke to the ranks and Nigeria will want to forget their early AFCON exit. Nigeria are also coming with some bolstered firepower: Odion Ighalo, Ademola Lookman, Akinkunmi Amoo, Calvin Bassey, Victor Osimhen, and Emmanuel Dennis.

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DR Congo vs Morocco
There’s a chance for history. DR Congo can qualify for their first World Cup since 1974, when they were known as Zaire. DR Congo will be led by Hector Cuper and will be hoping to show they can hang at this level. They are the only country remaining who did not qualify for AFCON, but they have a strong core of players. Morocco will be looking to qualify for consecutive World Cups for the first time in their history. However there were some complications within the Moroccan squad. Vahid Halilhodžić has had issues with some players, notably Hakim Ziyech and Noussair Mazraoui, who rejected call ups for the qualifiers; Ziyech even retired from international duty. If there were a time for an upset, DR Congo can strike right now.

Mali vs Tunisia
Mali are a very talented team, they have a bunch of up-and-coming players and showed their stuff at AFCON. Can this crop of talent take their country to the next level and qualify for their first World Cup? They added Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucouré to bolster their squad. Tunisia, the Carthage Eagles, did not change much from their AFCON side who stunned Nigeria but were knocked out in the quarterfinals. They will be hoping to continue to be resolute and break on the counter when possible. There is some familiarity with these two nations as they will face each other for the fourth and fifth time within the last three years.

Predictions

Do I really have to pick winners? really? Fine. I will be bold but this is football, African football so expect the unexpected. So here are my predictions for the five teams who will qualify for the 2022 World Cup: Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco and Mali.

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Do not take my predictions as gospel, though. Fireworks will spark, tears will be shed, banter will be served, cold. Grab your popcorn, the African World Cup qualifiers are reaching the climax.




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