Ivory Coast and Senegal claimed Africa’s final two automatic qualifying spots for the 2026 Fifa World Cup as both sides registered victories on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senegal claimed a 4-0 home win over Mauritania to secure first place in Group B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Sadio Mane free-kick put the hosts ahead on the stroke of half-time and the former Liverpool forward slotted in his second before Iliman Ndiaye added a fine solo effort and Habib Diallo rounded off the scoring late on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Teranga Lions finished the campaign two points ahead of DR Congo, who beat Sudan 1-0 thanks to Theo Bongonda’s first-half strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, Franck Kessie gave Ivory Coast an early lead against Kenya in Group F and teenager Yan Diomande fired in to double the lead after the break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Manchester United’s Amad curled in a fine free-kick to give the Elephants a 3-0 victory in Abidjan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That result meant the reigning continental champions finished a point ahead of Gabon, who saw off Burundi 2-0 in Franceville after late goals from Bryan Meyo and Mario Lemina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Ivorians, who return to the World Cup finals for the first time since 2014, went through the entire 10-game group campaign without conceding a goal, one of two nations on the continent to do so alongside Tunisia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ivory Coast and Senegal join Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Cape Verde and South Africa in booking their ticket to next year’s World Cup finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One more side – the winners of next month’s continental play-offs – could join that group if they emerge from an inter-confederation tournament in March next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cameroon, DR Congo, Gabon and Nigeria finished as the four best-ranked second-placed sides across the nine groups and one of those sides will have the chance to become Africa’s 10th representative at the expanded 48-team World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Confederation of African Football is yet to announce a date for the play-off draw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ivory Coast and Senegal claimed Africa’s final two automatic qualifying spots for the 2026 Fifa World Cup as both sides registered victories on Tuesday. Senegal claimed a 4-0 home win over Mauritania to secure first place in Group B. A Sadio Mane free-kick put the hosts ahead on the stroke of half-time and the former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"full":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-scaled.jpg",2560,1709,false]},"categories_names":{"27":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/?cat=27"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"cvmm-medium":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"cvmm-medium-plus":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-305x207.jpg",305,207,true],"cvmm-portrait":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-400x600.jpg",400,600,true],"cvmm-medium-square":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-600x600.jpg",600,600,true],"cvmm-large":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-1024x1024.jpg",1024,1024,true],"cvmm-small":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-130x95.jpg",130,95,true],"full":["https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G3P3SmMXoAA3gDC-scaled.jpg",2560,1709,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":977,"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions\/977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsnest.co.ug\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}