Six facts about African teams in the Fifa World Cup

What you need to know:

  • Africa's top scorers at the World Cup are Ghana's Asamoah Gyan (6), Cameroon's Roger Milla (5) and Nigeria's Ahmed Musa (4).
  • At the most recent edition in 2018, Africa was represented by Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia.

With the race for the 2020 Fifa World Cup now taking shape after the group stages draw was conducted on Tuesday in Cairo, here are six facts about African teams in the global football showpiece.

  • Thirteen African teams have already taken part in the World Cup, and they are all still in the running to grace the 2022 edition: South Africa, Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Congo DR, Senegal, Tunisia and Togo.

  • The first appearance by an African nation at the World Cup was in 1934, when Egypt participated in that edition hosted by Italy.

  • Cameroon are the CAF team with the most appearances in the competition (7), ahead of Nigeria (6), and Morocco and Tunisia (5). In terms of games won, Nigeria lead the way with six wins from 21 matches, ahead of Ghana (4/12), Cameroon (4/23), Senegal (3/8) and Algeria (3/13).

  • The furthest any African team has gone at the World Cup is the quarter-finals. Cameroon were the first to do so in 1990, before Senegal (2002) and Ghana (2010) emulated the feat.

  • Africa's top scorers at the World Cup are Ghana's Asamoah Gyan (6), Cameroon's Roger Milla (5) and Nigeria's Ahmed Musa (4).