273 Games and a Dream: My Mission to Watch Every Game of CAF World Cup Qualifying
As soon as I laid eyes on the African Football Confederation’s qualifying format for the 2026 World Cup, I knew I would have to get invested in the process. Qualifying formats have been undergoing exciting transformations across confederations, in light of COVID-19’s impact on the 2022 cycle. We got some fun systems, including CONCACAF’s evolution from the “hex” to the “ocho,” and an extremely odd UEFA format, that I’m not sure even the teams involved understood. Another fun one is AFC’s 2026 format, which I’ve attached an image of below. Good luck figuring that one out. Meanwhile, OFC hasn’t even released its format yet… They might want to get working on that? Thankfully, this cycle’s CAF qualifying format has both been released and is not quite as confusing. However, it has its own beauty — which I will be deciphering as I watch all 273 games of African teams battling for World Cup spots (plus probably a lot of meaningless games, too).
54 teams. 9 groups of 6 teams. Home-and-away round robin. Winners advance to the World Cup, and the 4 best second-place teams go into a one-off playoff to determine the 1 intercontinental playoff representative.
UEFA used a similar format for the 2018 World Cup qualifying from September 2016 to November 2017. Frankly, it was quite underwhelming. Mostly because it was UEFA, and UEFA is generic and boring. However, in CAF, they’re doing things a bit differently. No political/geographical limitations on the draw, and a 2-year cycle kicking off on November 13, 2023 that wraps up on November 18, 2025. That’s two calendar years! With the IPO in March 2026 — talk about an epic two and a half years of African football. It’s awesome, baby. (Can I make a Dick Vitale reference in a soccer article? Is that a thing? Too late…)
Why CAF?
Apart from 2010 (when South Africa hosted the tournament), CAF has been awarded 5 World Cup berths per tournament since 1994 (when they had 3). With 9 automatic qualifiers and one IPO participant, CAF is going to be more competitive than ever this cycle, as teams battle in this grueling format.
My knowledge of African Football is extremely limited — mainly to the 2022 World Cup and AFCON 2021. My journey began with AFCON and the Tunisia Mali game, which descended into chaos when the referee blew the whistle early twice. He later said “God told [him] to end the game.” Turns out, he was suffering from heat stroke. Unfortunately, that game went viral for all the wrong reasons, yet it was my primary introduction to the world of CAF. Then, I also watched the final of that tournament, which Senegal won in penalties. It was meant to be for Mané, as he powered the winning penalty into the bottom left corner past the goalkeeper. Cool, calm, and collected. Another fun moment was the two-legged CAF playoff thriller. I think Egypt had a decent argument against the result there — The lasers were pretty visible on the Egyptian penalty takers’ faces, however, only a minor punishment was handed out. I’m sure Senegal was happy to pay the $180,000 fine if it meant a World Cup berth.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time recapping the 2022 World Cup, but for Africa, the obvious highlight was Morocco. They dominated defensively, controlling the pace of every group stage match. They beat Belgium and Canada quite easily, and drew 0–0 with the team they would eventually meet in the 3rd place game, Croatia. They went onto defeat Spain in penalties (3–0 in pens, which I think is still an underrated funny moment of the tournament) and shut down Portugal with a 1–0 win. Coming off a 6-goal game, Morocco’s stout defending showed up in that quarterfinal match against the Portuguese. They’d go onto lose to France and Croatia, but still, a 4th place finish is the best for an African nation ever. African football is on the rise, folks.
Unfortunately for Senegal, Sadio Mané missed the entire tournament. Still, a lucky bounce to Kalidou Koulibaly saw them through to the knockouts, where they were beaten by England in the Round of 16. Nothing to be ashamed of there. Tunisia had one of the stranger tournaments, drawing Denmark, losing to Australia, and beating France. For France, it was meaningless, but nevertheless, it was an impressive result for the Eagles of Carthage (guess I’m going to have to learn a lot of nicknames?) Just like Tunisia, Cameroon was eliminated in the group stage in an odd set of games, where they lost to Switzerland, drew to Serbia (in the best game of the group stage), and eked by Brazil (in a meaningless game). Ghana beat South Korea in a thriller, and lost to Portugal in a very funny match. Ghana’s Osman Bukari hit Ronaldo’s signature “Siu” after scoring… to cut the deficit to 1. As Men in Blazers said, some things are just more important than winning. Oh yeah, then they lost to Uruguay 2–0 to get eliminated from the group stage in a game I have absolutely no recollection of.
So those were Africa’s World Cup results in 2022, but how about looking forward to qualifying for 2026? Thanks to my friend Dopey over at dopemodels.info, we can get a good look at what ELO projects across all 273 games:
In this model, we can see some of those familiar names at the top, but also, some higher percentages than usual for those mid-level teams. 12.3% chance for Equatorial Guinea? Love to see it. Another part I do enjoy seeing is percentages to qualify for the IPO. Burkina Faso has the highest probability to qualify for it, and Egypt has the second highest. This is mostly due to their draws, which I’ll get to next. Overall, I think we are going to get a very exciting group stage and CAF playoff. These are the groups:
And these are how each teams chances were affected as a result of their draw:
As we can see, Mali took a hit. For a pot 1 team, drawing Ghana was a nightmare. Of course, Zambia saw their odds dip, drawing the 4th best team in Qatar 2022. It’s likely they’ll have to depend on the playoff for a shot at the World Cup. On the contrary, Ivory Coast has to be ecstatic about their group. Ghana and South Africa are celebrating as well, I’m sure, avoiding some of the potential pot 1 giants. Keep in mind, I’m literally just going off ELO and vibes here. Speaking of vibes, how are South Sudan and Sudan in the same group? UEFA has like 47 draw limitations, but CAF will put those two in a group together for a home-and-away? Why not.
To see the following chart of group stage projections (and models for all tournaments in all confederations), go to dopemodels.info. This is all his, so please go support him and what he does modeling international football. Truly one of my heroes, he allows me to pretend to know what I’m talking about in this sport.
In a nutshell, I’m expecting fireworks for CAF 2026 qualifying for the World Cup. Well, probably more lasers than fireworks. My point stands nevertheless, and I will be watching all 273 games. Not all live, of course, but at some point, they will be watched. Legally or illegal. Maybe I will do a window-by-window recap of what I have learned from each 54-game set? I guess we’ll see. This will be quite the journey — 2+ years. But it’s time for me to finally dive into the world of CAF, headfirst.
