Soccer Football - World Cup - African Qualifiers - Group F - Kenya v Gabon - Nyayo National Stadium, Nairobi, Kenya - March 23, 2025 Gabon's Andre Poko plays against Kenya's Timothy Ouma. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) -Three of Africa's heavyweight teams will have a second chance at World Cup qualification next month, keeping alive their hopes despite not winning their respective groups.
Cameroon, whose eight previous World Cup appearances are the most by an African nation, will be joined by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Nigeria in a playoff tournament in Morocco next month.
The quartet were the four best runners-up across the nine African groups where the winners gained automatic qualification.
They will play two semi-finals on November 13 and then a deciding match three days later with the winner advancing to the intercontinental playoff in March where the last two World Cup places will be decided.
The pairings for the African playoffs have the highest-ranked team in the FIFA rankings of October 23 play the lowest-ranked, and the other tie will have the second-highest taking on the third-highest.
The rankings are not expected to change much from the last issued on September 18 and so Nigeria (45) should play Gabon (79) while Cameroon (52) take on DR Congo (60).
Determining the four best runners-up was a complicated calculation as results against the last-placed team in the groups had to be expunged because one of the nine groups had five participants instead of six.
Up until the last day of qualifiers on Tuesday, the best four runners-up were still not settled with Nigeria only making sure of their place when they scored a fourth goal in their home rout of Benin. It meant Burkina Faso lost out by a single goal.
Nigeria, with six previous World Cup appearances, finished their qualifiers strongly despite a poor overall campaign and look the strongest of the sides in the playoffs, led by Victor Osimhen, who netted a hat-trick on Tuesday.
Cameroon have little of the lustre of previous years, with their government-appointed coach, Marc Brys, having an acrimonious relationship with the federation president, Samuel Eto’o.
DR Congo previously qualified over a half-century ago when the country was known as Zaire, but they were in the driving seat in their group until Senegal fought back from two goals down to beat them 3-2 in Kinshasa last month and take over top place in Group B.
(Editing by Christian Radnedge)
