Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
2026 FIFA World Cup
12JUN

Nine African nations reach the knockouts

2 min read
09:25UTC

A record nine African nations reached the round of 32, and Egypt became the first of them ever to win a World Cup knockout tie.

← Back to Mexico finally win an opener, on the ninth tryJump to analysis ↓
SportDeveloping
Key takeaway

A record nine African nations reached the knockouts, with Egypt the first ever to win a knockout tie.

A record nine African nations reached the round of 32, the most the continent has ever sent to a World Cup knockout stage, and Egypt became the first of them to win a knockout tie. 1

The expanded 48-team format, whose group stage closed with record attendance , was criticised before kickoff as diluted, most loudly over the burnout an extra knockout round would add. Several of these African sides came through the third-place qualifying route the expansion introduced, a mechanism that hands the eight best group third-placers a path the old 32-team format never offered. Take that route away and the field narrows back towards the same established powers.

Cape Verde pushing the holders to extra time, and Egypt's penalty win over Australia, are the newcomers answering the dilution charge on the pitch. The same expansion that widened the field also strains the veterans who sell it, yet in this window it has looked more like vindication than the mistake its critics forecast.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

A record nine African nations reached the World Cup's round of 32, the most the continent has ever sent to a knockout stage at once. Egypt then became the first African side ever to win a World Cup knockout match, beating Australia on penalties, while Cape Verde, a nation of 550,000 playing in its first-ever World Cup, took holders Argentina to extra time. The record partly reflects the tournament's expansion to 48 teams, which gave Africa nine guaranteed qualifying places instead of five, and answers critics who worried before the tournament that adding so many new teams would produce lopsided, one-sided matches.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The expanded 48-team format seeds 12 groups of four, advancing the top two from each plus the eight best third-placed sides, a route that did not exist under the previous 32-team, eight-group structure. That third-place backdoor, which closed on 27 June, is the specific mechanical reason nine African qualifiers could survive the group stage even where some finished third.

CAF's own qualifying reform ahead of this cycle widened Africa's guaranteed direct slots from five to nine plus a playoff berth, giving more federations a realistic path and, over the qualifying years, more competitive fixtures than any previous African cycle produced.

Sources:Al Jazeera
Mentions:FIFA →Cape Verde →Argentina →Morocco →Cameroon →Australia →Senegal →World Cup →Egypt →
First Reported In

Update #33 · Mexico City doubles police for Azteca tie

Al Jazeera· 4 Jul 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Last 32 set on a record group stage
The record nine African qualifiers stem from the expanded 48-team group stage that closed with record attendance and goals on 27 June.
Occurred 27 Jun 2026
Read story →
This Event
Nine African nations reach the knockouts
Nine African sides reaching the knockouts, and Egypt winning a knockout tie, show the 48-team expansion delivering the breakthroughs critics said it would dilute.
Led to
Africa's ten cut to two survivors
Nine African nations reaching the round of 32 set up the round in which seven were eliminated.
Occurred 4 Jul 2026
Read story →
Argentina reach last eight; Egypt out
The record nine-nation African run into the round of 32 set up the continent's later attrition to a single survivor.
Occurred 6 Jul 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
French Football Federation
French Football Federation
The FFF called an 11:00 CEST press conference for 28 July, at its Paris headquarters, following an extraordinary executive committee meeting, at which Zinedine Zidane is expected to be presented as head coach succeeding Didier Deschamps. As of this writing no communique confirms the appointment, contract length or start date.
Morocco
Morocco
Morocco is pushing for the 2030 final at its Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, a planned 115,000-seat venue that would be the world's largest football stadium on completion. The venue is contested by a Spanish petition for the Santiago Bernabeu, and FIFA has fixed neither the venue nor the tournament's proposed 64-team format.
FIFA
FIFA
FIFA's first tournament report, published 27 July, itemises nearly 300,000 accredited personnel, 73,700 security staff and 300,000 square metres of custom-grown turf, with no revenue or cost figure attached. As a Swiss association answering to its own Congress rather than a treasury, FIFA has followed the same operational-before-financial sequence it used after Qatar 2022.
Javier Tebas / La Liga
Javier Tebas / La Liga
La Liga president Javier Tebas said on 21 July that FIFA's system is rotten from the root and that Gianni Infantino's time as president has, in his words, concluded. Tebas has no vote in FIFA's process, so days after the IOC declined jurisdiction over a separate ethics complaint, he used the only instrument he has.
Mexico City government
Mexico City government
Head of government Clara Brugada presented a closing report on 22 July crediting the tournament with 44 billion pesos of economic activity, 2,000-plus accelerated public works and 100,000 formal jobs in June alone. The city has not published the method behind that figure, and three other Mexican bodies count the same five weeks differently.
Town of Foxborough
Town of Foxborough
Foxborough answered Kraft Group's June lawsuit on 7 July with a 61-page counterclaim, calling the stadium's owners 'a collection of multibillion-dollar corporations' trying to shift its $7.8 million security bill onto taxpayers. The town says its licensing power and its billing power run through the same board, and it wants the court to award its own costs too.