Bafana Bafana will have to negotiate their way against a top ranked opponent from North or West Africa in their qualification route for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The draw for the CAF leg of the World Cup qualifiers takes place today at 17h00 in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire with 54 teams being split into nine groups of six teams who will play home and away matches from November 13, 2023 to October 14, 2025.
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All nine group winners qualify for the World Cup while the four best ranked group runners-up will go into a play-off to determine the team to advance to the inter-confederation play-offs (which will not feature UEFA).
To determine the order of seeding the latest FIFA rankings have been used which throws Bafana into pot two.
Each pot has six teams.
The 2026 tournament will be the first to be hosted by three countries with USA, Mexico, and Canada all staging matches in 16 cities.
This will also be the first competition featuring 48 countries.
CAF has been allocated nine guaranteed spots – up from five when the World Cup finals had 32 countries.
Bafana last played at the World Cup finals as hosts in 2010 and last qualified in 2002 with their only ever previous qualification coming in 1998.
The senior national team failed to qualify for the 1994, 2006, 2014, and 2018 tournaments.
Any of Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, and Cote d'Ivoire will be the top-ranked opponents from Pot One.
Senegal will be the worst while Cote d'Ivoire or Mali would be the better opposition.
From Pot Three the toughest is Congo, Togo in Pot Four, Niger in Pot Five while Pot Six which is led by Lesotho has no threat.
The better options with the least travels for Bafana will be a group with Mali, Namibia, Malawi, Eswatini, and Lesotho.
-Pot One: Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire
-Pot Two: Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa, Cabo Verde, Congo DR, Guinea, Zambia, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea
-Pot Three: Uganda, Benin, Mauritania, Kenya, Congo, Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, Angola
-Pot Four: Mozambique, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Malawi, Libya
-Pot Five: Niger, Comoros, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Botswana, Liberia
-Pot Six: Lesotho, South Sudan, Mauritius, Chad, São Tomé and Príncipe, Djibouti, Seychelles, Eritrea, Somalia
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