Three-time African champions, the Super Eagles of Nigeria who have reached the Round of 16 at the FIFA World Cup finals on three occasions, must overcome the challenge of the Bafana Bafana of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Benin Republic, Lesotho and Rwanda in Group C to reach the 2026 edition to be staged in the USA, Mexico and Canada.
The teams were paired during the preliminary draws organized by Confederation of African Football (CAF) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
Super Eagles, who missed out on the Qatar World Cup will begin the hunt for the world Cup qualification in games that will take place over ten matchDays during the next two years.
According to FIFA, the 54 CAF nations were seeded in six pots and then drawn into nine groups, each comprising six teams.
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The nine groups will play in a home and away, round-robin, format with each of the group winners qualifying automatically for the FIFA World Cup.
The four best group runners-up will then compete in a play-off stage to determine CAF’s representative at the FIFA play-off tournament.
The FIFA play-off tournament will feature one team from each of FIFA’s six confederations, except UEFA, plus one additional team from the host confederation (Concacaf).
Two of the six teams will be seeded based on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. The seeded teams will play for a FIFA World Cup berth against the winners of the first two knockout games involving the four unseeded teams.
The qualifiers, including the playoffs, will start from November 3, 2023 till November 18, 2025.
It will be recalled that Africa got nine automatic places when the World Cup was expanded to 48 teams in 2026.
The World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada from 11 June 2026 to 19 July 2026.
The Groups at a glance
GROUP A: Egypt, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Djibouti
GROUP B: Senegal, DR Congo, Mauritania, Togo, Sudan, South Sudan
GROUP C: Nigeria, South Africa, Benin Republic, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Lesotho
GROUP D: Cameroon, Cape Verde, Angola, Libya, eSwatini, Mauritius
GROUP E: Morocco, Zambia, Congo, Tanzania, Niger Republic, Eritrea
GROUP F: Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Kenya, The Gambia, Burundi, Seychelles
GROUP G: Algeria, Guinea, Uganda, Mozambique, Botswana, Somalia
GROUP H: Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea, Namibia, Malawi, Liberia, Sao Tome & Principe
GROUP I: Mali, Ghana, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Comoros, Chad
