Africa > Middle East (At Least at the 2026 World Cup)
- Fred
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
Cape Verde is easily the best success story of this World Cup. Standing toe-to-toe with favorites-to-win Spain to earn a 0-0 tie, then coming in second above favorites-to-advance Uruguay and Saudi Arabia, the tiny African Nation proved nearly all the prognosticators, and the bettors, wrong.
Now we pick on Qatar all the time that they're not very good at soccer, but Caper Verde over neighboring Saudi Arabia in their Group was historically stunning. Saudi Arabia, for the last generation, has represented the Middle East in a proud fashion.
But as you check out all the groups, you'll notice something equally surprising. Africa, as a continent, had the highest percentage of teams advancing out of group play of any of the continents.
With 9 of 10 teams advancing, Africa, by percentage (90%), sent more teams to the next round than Europe (13 of 16, 81.25%). But at this stage of the tournament, there's still a lot of soccer to be played.
But you know who did abysmal, as a region? The Middle East.
Qatar - Out
Iran - Out
Iraq - Out
Jordan - Out
Uzbekistan - Out
Saudi Arabia - Out
Turkey - Now we counted them as European, but according to Britannia, they are the Middle East.
OUT!
The only team from the Middle East to advance was Egypt. But as all you cartographers know, Egypt is technically in Africa.
If you look at the Asian Qualifiers, only Australia and Japan remain. They are far, far from the Middle East.
Now if you really, really wanted to defend the Middle East, you'd say "how did teams from the Middle East qualify over giants like China, India, or Indonesia?"
Great Question!!!
..... For another day.
I've told this story on Beacon of Speech many times, but I'll re-tell the short version once again.
Growing up in football crazy Brunswick, Ohio, the Middle School had an immaculately kept football field with expensive goal posts and stands large enough to accommodate enough fans for most high schools.
A short walk away was the soccer field, with overgrown grass and weeds, a cinder track around the field, and paint peeling from the wooden goal posts. By the end of a soccer season, the field was more mud than grass and resembled an abandoned field more than somewhere where you'd play soccer.
But I'll never forget our old soccer coach Tony, from Czechoslovakia (which no longer exists), yelling at us: "You are spoiled American kids, playing with fancy soccer balls filled with air, a field with grass, and goalposts."
Apparently, back in Czechoslovakia, young coach Tony played soccer in a gravel parking lot with bricks and broken glass scattered throughout, with chalk marks on brick buildings as goals. To top it off, the soccer ball was simply a bunch of socks wadded into a ball.
His message was timeless: You could play soccer anywhere, if you wanted to.