A record 10 squads from Africa in the World Cup. Nine of them in the knockout rounds — another record. An odds-defying run from Cabo Verde, the smallest country ever to advance past the group stage.
Among the major storylines of the 2026 World Cup, few have been as historic as the success of the African teams. In Massachusetts, home to some of the largest African diasporas in the United States, fans have reacted to the African wins — and ties — with raucous celebrations in parks, restaurants and even barbershops. And there will certainly be more ecstasy locally if Morocco takes down mighty France in the quarterfinals Thursday afternoon at Gillette Stadium, temporarily renamed Boston Stadium for the tournament.
It's all a remarkable turnabout from 60 years ago when every African national soccer team boycotted the World Cup.
The boycott of the 1966 tournament stemmed from FIFA's unwillingness to give the continent at least one guaranteed spot in the 16-team draw. For comparison, Europe and South America had a combined 14 automatic bids. African countries argued that they, too, deserved a consistent presence in the world's largest sporting event. Yet FIFA refused to budge.
"Certainly from a structural standpoint, discrimination was clear," said Peter Alegi, a historian of African soccer at Michigan State University. "FIFA has always claimed that it was a universal institution governing the world's game. But really what it was, was a European institution with South American partners, and it was dominated by white men."
Historians say although the boycott remains overlooked, it's been pivotal to the African teams' success 60 years later.
A united front
The idea to sit out the 1966 World Cup only took hold after a slew of African countries gained independence from European colonizers in the late '50s and early '60s.
Among the new countries' first steps was to join international sports organizations, like the International Olympic Committee and FIFA, as a way of introducing themselves on the global stage. It didn't take long for the countries' soccer teams to showcase their skills on the pitch.
In 1962, Morocco advanced through the World Cup qualifying playoffs before falling short to Spain. Two years later, in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Ghana surprised many by beating the host country, Japan, and reaching the quarterfinals.
Despite that success, Alegi said FIFA continued to dismiss the African squads. Instead of granting the continent an automatic bid, the international soccer body forced the teams to compete against their counterparts from Asia and Oceania for a single spot in the World Cup.
"The view, generally speaking with few exceptions, was that African and Asian nations in particular were not ready yet — in that kind of paternalistic, condescending way that Western nations tended to explain inequality at the time," Alegi said.
Inflaming the African soccer confederation's frustration, FIFA briefly lifted its suspension of South Africa's national team from international soccer events. FIFA had enacted the suspension because of the South African squad's ties to the country's white-led apartheid government.
By 1964, the Confederation of African Football had enough. One of its executives, Yidnekatchew Tessema, accused FIFA of repressing and intimidating African football associations. The decision to boycott meant that 15 African squads withdrew from qualifying for the 1966 World Cup in England.
"They are saying ... 'We are just as good as any European nation,'" said Jermaine Scott, a historian of African diasporic soccer at Florida Atlantic University. "'We may not have the same resources, the same kind of historic institutional soccer tradition. But we do have a tradition.' And it's competing with many of these traditional powerbrokers of world football."
60 years of slow progress
Initially, Alegi said, FIFA "didn't blink" in response to the boycott. But then North Korea upset soccer powerhouse Italy in the 1966 World Cup, leading some international soccer leaders to believe that developing countries might deserve a fairer chance at competing in the tournament. Around that same time, African countries started gaining clout over FIFA as more of them joined the organization's legislative body.
By the late 1960s, FIFA conceded to the pressure; it finally gave Africa an automatic bid in the 1970 World Cup that Morocco ended up clinching. Over the next several decades, the continent secured more guaranteed spots in the tournament.
With that number now at nine, Alegi said the African countries only have themselves to thank.
"The democratization of FIFA was really spearheaded by Africans," Alegi said. "It is Africans, in significant part, that made FIFA the genuinely global and more democratic organization that it became."
Sixty years after the 1966 World Cup, soccer historians say the African countries' boycott is rarely discussed in the media. And despite the African teams' success in this year's tournament, Alegi cautions against forgetting about structural inequities and obstacles that continue to dog African soccer federations.
For example, African countries still struggle to grow their domestic soccer leagues, attract sponsors and fund youth soccer initiatives. Alegi added that some soccer coaches and pundits have even used historically racist tropes in their analysis of losses by African teams in this year's World Cup.
Still, fans of the continent's teams say it's hard not to see the historic success in the tournament as a fitting way to commemorate the boycott.
At a watch party in Worcester for the Ghana-England draw last month, fans said squads like Morocco, Cabo Verde and Ghana are proving what the Confederation of African Football argued when it launched the boycott: that the continent can compete with the world's best on soccer's biggest stage.
"The African teams are up-and-coming," said Alex Wachera, who's originally from Kenya. "Do not count us as underdogs. We are here to rule the world. Be careful."
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