The President of the Senegalese Football Federation, Augustin Senghor, has spoken out about the chances of the Lions of Teranga qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The head of the FSF believes that his proteges have fallen into a “playable” group.
Like the other African teams in the running, Senegal also knows its group for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, which will take place in America (United States, Canada, and Mexico). The Lions of Teranga are housed in Group B, alongside Togo, DR Congo, Mauritania, Sudan, and South Sudan. An affordable group for the reigning African champions who should pull their weight.
This is what the President of the Senegalese Football Federation, Augustin Senghor, thinks. In comments relayed by Africafootunited, the head of the FSF believes that this group is playable for his team, even if Togo, DRC, and Mauritania could play the spoilers.
“From the top of our rank as the 2nd African nation on the continent and in view of the performances achieved in recent years, we cannot be picky. We think that this group is playable for Senegal but at the same time we remain on this line of humility which has always been our strength in recent years. We respect everyone all the more so as the qualifications for the last World Cup show that the gap separating the great African teams and those said to be “low level” is no longer large. They are progressing by playing with the big teams,” said the FSF president.
“There were some surprises in the last qualifiers and big nations fell to small football nations. So we will take all the matches seriously as we are used to doing with Aliou Cissé and his team, we will start these qualifiers well from the first two or three matches to take pole position in our group before seeking to qualify,” added Augustin Senghor.
All the groups of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers As a reminder, the winners of each group will automatically qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The four best second-placed teams in the groups will play in a CAF playoff tournament. The winner of this tournament will participate in a second and final FIFA playoff in which five other teams will take part. The first two teams will qualify for the World Cup.
The first and second rounds of these qualifiers will be held from November 13 to 21, 2023, the third and fourth rounds from June 3 to 11, 2024, the fifth and sixth rounds from March 17 to 25, 2025, the seventh and eighth rounds from September 1 to 9, 2025, the ninth and tenth rounds from October 6 to 14, 2025.
