The excitement that comes with the FIFA World Cup is here and Africa will once again be represented by giants of the continent. None of the five teams from Africa will be making a debut at the competition, and definitely none will be there just to make up the numbers so we expect a fantastic competition from the African teams, Abbeylivenetwork.com reports.
All the five teams that qualified are in the top 10 among Africa nations on the FIFA rankings though that comes very much stretched when looked at in terms of their ranks on the world table. There have been complaints about the system of qualification in the CAF region, which now means a star player like Mohamed Salah will miss out. Nigeria, and all their star players will also miss out and the same applies to Algeria.
The 2022 World Cup, played in November to December and not the traditional period of June to July is expected to be favorable for African teams given the Middle East weather closely matches African weather. With that, we should be able to see the best from the African representatives
No African team has ever gotten as far as the semifinal stage of the World Cup, the continent has just 5 slots despite being home to more countries than any other continent.
Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia are Africa’s representatives at the tournament and will be looking to bring home the highly-coveted trophy for the first time in history. In this article, I will analyze the chances of each of these nations in their bid to win the World Cup in December on the basis of certain factors, including form, fixtures, and quality.
CAMEROON
The elephants of Cameroon had the most fairytale path to their world cup qualification, with Toko Ekambi scoring a 124th-minute header in the playoff to pip Algeria on away goals. The World Cup tournament seems to have come at a bad time for the country who have not been in the best of forms as the tournament approaches.
Rigobert Song’s men lost their final two preparatory friendly games before the start of the tournament to South Korea and Uzbekistan without scoring a goal in either fixture. Their last win came against 143rd-ranked Burundi in June, where they struggled to get a 1-0 win.
The team struggles to play quality football and seems to lack the much-needed connection necessary for national football teams to thrive.
Grouped with Serbia, Switzerland and favorites Brazil, Cameroon currently appears the weakest of the bunch and it will take a miracle to go past the group stage.
VERDICT: Group Stage
GHANA
Ghana is another team who had to work extremely hard for their qualification. After a controversial win against South Africa sent them to the playoff, they put up a strong performance to shock the star-studded Nigerian team and booked the World Cup ticket at the expense of their neighbours.
After the 1-0 win against South Africa, Ghana failed to win their next 6 games. Their form has also not been the best of recent as they won just one of their last four friendlies which was a scrappy 1-0 win against 142nd-ranked Nicaragua. The country lost 3-0 to Brazil who are one of its group stage opponents and went down 4-1 against Japan.
Ghana were very unlucky with the draw as they go up against Portugal, South Korea and Uruguay ranked 9th, 28th and 14th respectively.
Although Ghana has a number of decent names in their squad including the likes of Thomas Partey and Iñaki Williams, it is difficult to see them get through to the Round of 16 considering their meagre form and their opponents being better.
VERDICT: Group Stage
MOROCCO
Morocco are one of the best African teams at the World Cup in terms of overall style of play as well as form. The North African team qualified for the tournament easily and have been in great form since then. They comfortably saw off Chile 2-0 in one of their preparatory friendly games which was followed by an unlucky 0-0 draw against Paraguay.
Coach Wadri Regrarui has created a formidable team which has lost just twice in 43 games. They go up against Canada, Belgium and Croatia in Group F.
VERDICT: Round of 16
SENEGAL
The current kings of Africa. Currently playing like football is too easy, dominating and winning every game in their path, have a squad of pure quality and a team chemistry similar to the mediaeval Spartans.
Senegal gives Africa hope of having a World Cup to remember and they are very much capable of achieving this dream. Paired with Ecuador, Netherlands and hosts Qatar, Senegal have the easiest group among all African teams and will almost definitely make it to the next round.
The team screams positivity as they are in good form, have great players and are very hungry for the title, expect a great world cup.
Their potential opponents in the next round do not look too scary either, the outcome of other games could favour them in the quarterfinals but we can only hope.
VERDICT: Top of the Group, possible Semifinal finish.
TUNISIA
Despite losing 5-1 to Brazil in their last friendly game before the World Cup, Tunisia have been in good form going 7 games unbeaten.
Jalal Qaderi has built an astonishing team capable of making it far in the tournament. This is very much possible as Tunisia are grouped with Denmark, France and Australia, difficult, but very much possible.
