After Ghana was drawn against Mali in Africa’s World Cup qualifiers, former Ghana captain Asamoah Gyan expressed his belief that Ghana is becoming accustomed to the global tournament.
The Black Stars were also placed in Group I alongside Madagascar, Central African Republic, Comoros, and Chad.
Gyan, who retired as Ghana’s all-time leading goal scorer, participated in the draw for the 2026 World Cup African qualifiers as a CAF legend. Despite the challenging nature of their group, Gyan remains confident in Ghana’s chances and stated that they will give their best to secure qualification.
“Since we qualified to the World Cup for the first time in 2006, we are getting used to the World Cup,” Gyan said
“We’ll do our our best to qualify for the tournament.”
Since their first World Cup appearance in 2006, Ghana has been steadily gaining experience in the tournament. As four-time African champions, they are aiming to qualify for their fifth World Cup, following their previous participations in 2006, 2010, 2014, and the most recent edition in Qatar last year.
In Group I, Ghana is the only team that has previously qualified for the World Cup. Mali, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Comoros, and Chad are all seeking their maiden qualification.
The nine groups will engage in a round-robin format, playing home and away matches. The group winners will secure automatic qualification for the FIFA World Cup 2026. The four best runners-up from the groups will then participate in a play-off stage to determine the representative from CAF for the FIFA play-off tournament.
The FIFA play-off tournament will involve one team from each of FIFA’s six confederations, excluding UEFA, along with an additional team from the host confederation (Concacaf).
Two seeded teams will compete against the winners of the first two knockout matches involving the four unseeded teams, with the ultimate aim of securing a World Cup berth.
