Bafana Bafana are on the cusp of qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup after holding Nigeria to a 1-1 draw at Free State Stadium on Tuesday evening.
Hugo Broos’ men opened the scoring via an own goal from William Troost-Ekong, while the Super Eagles equalised through Calvin Bassey.
The draw was enough for Bafana to stay six points ahead of Nigeria, all but ending their hopes of qualifying for the World Cup.
With South Africa currently sitting on 17 points, and Nigeria, Rwanda and Benin – who are facing Lesotho this evening – all on 11, Bafana took a huge step towards the global showpiece.
Even, if Benin would beat Lesotho – game hadn’t kicked off at the time of writing – Bafana would stay three points ahead of Gernot Rohr’s men.
And with goal difference the first tie-breaker in World Cup qualifiers, Benin would need to make up three points and eight goals in the final two qualifiers, as Bafana currently sit on +8 and Benin have +/-0.
Should both teams somehow finish level on points and have an equal goal difference and goals scored, Bafana having beaten Benin home and away from home – trump them on the head-to-head record, meaning one win out of the last two qualifiers against Zimbabwe and Rwanda would be enough to book the ticket for the United States, Canada and Mexico (unless Benin would magically make up over eight goals on Bafana in their games against Rwanda and Nigeria).
Nigeria and Rwanda can only reach a maximum of 17 points, Benin could go up to 20 points, while Bafana’s maximum is 23 points.
If Lesotho would beat Benin tonight, Bafana technically have not qualified yet, despite a potential six-point lead ahead of Benin, Rwanda and Nigeria, as all three could still overtake them based on goal difference, but it would require either side to win both their final two qualifiers and Bafana to lose their’s.
Should FIFA still decide to dock three points from Bafana for the Teboho Mokoena yellow-card case, Bafana would drop to 14 points, while our goal difference would also drop from +8 to just +3 (the 2-0 win over Lesotho would turn into a 0-3), which would open the group much more…