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WAFCON 2026 has reached its midpoint. Every team has played at least once, most have played twice, and the group standings — chaotic in some places, clarifying in others — are worth reading carefully. The tournament is not following the script the pre-tournament seedings wrote. It is following a more interesting one. Here is the group-by-group accounting at the halfway mark.
Group A: Morocco Are Through. Everything Else Is Open.
Morocco have six points from two matches. Sanaa Mssoudy's 84th-minute winner against Algeria on Thursday makes their quarter-final confirmation a formality — they cannot be displaced from the top two regardless of the final round result. Algeria have three points, Senegal have three points, Kenya have zero. Algeria lead Senegal on goal difference. The final round — Algeria versus Kenya, Morocco versus Senegal — could produce any combination of second-place finishers. Senegal need to beat Morocco and Algeria need to drop points against Kenya to overturn the goal difference gap. Algeria need only to beat Kenya to qualify regardless of the Morocco-Senegal result. The most likely outcome is Algeria qualifying behind Morocco. The most dramatic outcome is a Senegal win over Morocco that takes the calculation to the wire.
Group B: Three Points Separate the Qualifiers from the Exits.
Tanzania and Ivory Coast lead Group B with three points each after matchday one. South Africa and Burkina Faso have zero. Tonight's South Africa versus Ivory Coast fixture, followed by Tanzania versus Burkina Faso, will effectively decide the group. A South Africa win tonight puts them level on points with Ivory Coast and Tanzania and gives the final round genuine multi-way tension. An Ivory Coast win tonight means South Africa must beat Tanzania in the final round and hope Ivory Coast do not win their match against Burkina Faso. Tanzania's position — three points from one match, Burkina Faso to come — means the East African side are in a strong position regardless of tonight's result. They could lose their final group game and still qualify if results go their way. The tournament debutant from the opening fixture has become the group leader with the most comfortable path to the knockout stage.
Group C: Nigeria's Survival Match Is Tomorrow.
Group C is the tournament's most statistically extreme group and the one that will produce the most consequential match of the group stage when Nigeria face Zambia on Saturday. The current standings: Malawi have three points, goal difference plus one. Zambia have three points, goal difference plus six. Nigeria have zero points, goal difference minus one. Egypt have zero points, goal difference minus six. Two teams are guaranteed to miss the quarter-finals from this group. After one round, those two teams are Nigeria and Egypt — the defending champions and the most historically significant nation in the group respectively. That sentence was not available before Tuesday evening. It is the result of Malawi's 3-2 upset and Zambia's 6-0 demolition, and it defines everything about what happens next.
The Nigeria-Zambia match on Saturday is not a normal group-stage fixture. It is a match Nigeria must win to have a realistic route to the knockout stage. Even a win leaves Nigeria dependent on the Malawi-Egypt result — they would need Malawi to drop points to avoid finishing third. A draw or defeat makes Nigeria's elimination almost certain. The defending champions, with Asisat Oshoala, Rasheedat Ajibade and Chiamaka Nnadozie in their squad, are facing a group stage exit. The tournament that was supposed to confirm their dynasty has produced the exact opposite in its first five days.
Group D: The Most Balanced Group, the Sharpest Next Round.
Group D is the only group where the first round produced results that matched the pre-tournament order — Ghana beat Cape Verde 2-0, Cameroon beat Mali 2-1. Both games were closer than the scorelines suggest. Doris Boaduwaa scored Ghana's opener in the sixth minute and Cape Verde's Klaydiana Borges was sent off in stoppage time, finishing the match with ten players. Cameroon's second goal against Mali came from a penalty awarded by VAR in the 72nd minute, after a match that was level and competitive for most of its duration. Ghana and Cameroon are level on three points and goal difference, and they face each other in the second round. That match — two continental powers, zero margin for error in a group where Cape Verde and Mali both have a route back in — is the Group D decider. It is also the most evenly matched fixture left in the group stage. Sport Blot will carry the full preview before the Ghana-Cameroon kickoff and the complete matchday-two round-up as the group stage reaches its conclusion.
