Pele‘s infamous African World Cup prediction has long passed its due date, but it’s still trotted out ahead of every FIFA World Cup as the continent still awaits its maiden global title.
“An African nation will win the World Cup before the year 2000,” Pele declared in 1977, somewhat ambitiously in light of Zaire’s disastrous campaign — and 9-0 hammering by Yugoslavia — at the 1974 tournament.
Things haven’t quite been that bad since, but there’s been precious little in the way of tangible African World Cup improvement. Cameroon‘s run to the 1990 quarterfinal remains Africa’s high watermark, emulated by Senegal (2002) and Ghana (2010), but never surpassed.
Pele even extended his prediction to 2010, but this too proved to be in vain.
In fact, the continent’s collective performances have arguably deteriorated in recent decades, with the 2018 tournament the first since 1982 — when Africa only had two participants — where none reached the knockouts.
In the 80s, across two tournaments, 25 percent of Africa’s World Cup participants reached the knockouts, this peaked at 33 percent across three tournaments — and 10 participants — across the 90s.
In the 2000s, again across 10 participants and two tournaments, only 20 percent of teams reached the knockouts, while the last 16 participants — across the last three editions — registered a 25 percent success rate of progression.
Africa’s teams have collectively won three group games in each tournament since 1998, a 20-percent win-rate which dropped to 16.6 percent in 2010 when Africa had six representatives rather than five.
