Social media users are talking about the current brouhaha African national teams are experiencing in the first knockout phase of the ongoing FIFA World Cup tournament in the United States of America, Mexico, and Canada.
Among the 48 nations at the newly expanded FIFA World Cup competition, ten African countries emerged as representatives for the marquee tournament. African champions, Senegal, and runners-up, Morocco (although there is an ongoing debate about this), among several others, qualified for the tournament in grand style. Unfortunately, the Super Eagles of Nigeria failed to qualify after losing to DR Congo in the second playoff round.
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In the group stages, Tunisia was the only African team to qualify for the next round after losing all their games. They suffered a 5-1 loss to Sweden in their opening group game, leading to the immediate sacking of their head coach, Sabri Lamouchi, following the woeful result.
He was replaced by Hervé Renard; however, they would lose 4-0 against Japan before suffering a 3-1 defeat to the Netherlands.
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While the Eagles of Carthage of Tunisia were eliminated, other African teams such as Morocco, the Elephants of Cote D’Ivoire, Egypt, DR Congo, Ghana, Algeria, South Africa, and Cape Verde went into the next round, with the 2025 AFCON champions, Senegal, only qualifying as one of the best losers after suffering two defeats against France and Norway in Group I.
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What Happened to African Teams in the Round of 32 at the World Cup?
Bafana Bafana of South Africa played against the co-host, Canada, in the first match of the Round of 32 contest. Following a drab contest, a Stephen Eustáquio long-range effort saw the co-host emerge winners of the contest in the concluding minutes of the encounter.
Several netizens took to social media to drag the Bafana Bafana of South Africa due to the tension that is ongoing in their country.
In another match, the Elephants of Côte d’Ivoire were eliminated after losing 2-1 to Norway. The match between DR Congo and the Three Lions of England would end in defeat once again for an African side, despite taking the lead early.
Two late goals from English captain and superstar forward, Harry Kane, saw them bring the game to a conclusion before extra time.
In a similar fashion to DR Congo’s defeat against England, the AFCON champions Senegal surprisingly threw away a two-goal lead against Belgium. Despite leading the contest for over 80 minutes, Senegal would drag the game into extra time following two late goals from Romelu Lukaku and Youri Tielemans.
The stake to the hearts of the Senegalese team and Africans came in the concluding part of extra time when Youri Tielemans smashed home a penalty to complete Belgium’s comeback. Belgium won 3-2, confirming Senegal’s elimination from the World Cup.
At the time of the publication of this article, Morocco is the only African side that is still in the competition. They defeated the Netherlands 3-2 on penalties following a 1-1 draw during full time.
Other African teams, such as Egypt, Cape Verde, Ghana, and Algeria, are yet to play their games.
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Is it an Inferiority Complex? – Social Media Users Scrutinize Africa’s Underwhelming Performance at the World Cup
Social media commentators have taken to their respective accounts to dissect the shambolic performance of African teams at the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament. Some pundits claim that Africans respect the Europeans too much, which is affecting how they perform on the field. They stated that Africans should learn to be confident in their performance and disregard an inferiority complex or imposter syndrome on the international stage.
Below is a cross-section of comments gathered by eelive.ng:
Meanwhile, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is the 23rd and current FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international men’s soccer championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA.
The tournament began on June 11, 2026, and will conclude on July 19.