African clubs participating in the 2025 Club World Cup have disappointed the aspirations of their fans by their early departure from the championship race that will be held until July 13, which raised many questions about football position in the continent in the world championships.
4 African clubs participated in the World Cup clubs, namely: Al -Ahly, the champion of the Champions League 2024, the Tunisian Esperance and its summer, the Moroccan Wadad, the 2022 champion, and the South African Sun Downs, who won the fourth best classification for the continent’s clubs, but none of them qualified for the final price.
With the curtain on the group stage competitions in the tournament at dawn on Friday, African clubs left the World Cup, empty -handed, and Africa became the only continent that no one represented in the round of 16, unlike the clubs of Europe, South America, North America and Asia.
Surprising disappointment for Al -Ahly
Before the start of the World Cup 2025 clubs in its new version with a system that includes 32 teams, the roof of the aspirations of the fans of the Egyptian Al -Ahly club seemed high to achieve a new global achievement in the tenth participation of the Red Castle team in the tournament.
Although Al -Ahly, who is newly crowned with the Egyptian League title, strengthened its ranks with several new players, led by Mustafa Zizou, Mahmoud Trezeguet, and the Tunisian Mohamed Ali bin Ramadan, the start of the team in the championship was disappointed with its draw with Inter Miami (0-0) before losing to Palmras, the Brazilian (2-0), and tied with Porto Portuguese (4-4).
Al -Ahly ended the first round race in the fourth and last place, which the club fans considered bitter disappointment after they were self -given to qualify for the second round in the least.
Al-Ahly actually performed well against Porto (4-4), but his horizon was late, as the loss against Palmeiras destroyed his chances of being in the rounds of the round of 16.
The striker Ashraf Bin Sharqi, Al -Ahly player, considered that the team’s participation would have been better had it not been for bad luck during the first match against Inter Miami when his team missed a penalty.
Bin Sharqi said through his official account on Instagram, “A great greeting and appreciation for the great and great audience that supported us in this global demonstration, yes you were the first bond for us and we apologize to all of you, and God willing, the next is better.”
Esperance and Sun Downs on the cusp of the second round
For his part, the Tunisian Esperance, the summer of the African champion 2024, was on the threshold of writing a historic achievement by reaching the second round of the World Cup, but his loss against Chelsea ended his participation to bid the championship from the first round.
In his fourth participation in the World Cup, Esperance was lost in two games against Brazilian Flamingo (2-0) and Chelsea (3-0), and he beat Los Angeles Galaxy (1-0) to end the fourth group race in third place.
Opinions differed on the evaluation of the appearance of Esperance in the championship, as a number of observers considered that the participation was disappointing, while others believe that the team presented an honorable performance and was able to achieve the first victory for Arabs and Africa until that time.
The Esperance player, Mohamed Amin Togai, said in a statement to Al -Jazeera Net after the return of the Esperance mission on Friday from the United States, that the performance of Esperance and its results were not at the level of aspirations despite the presence of many positive indicators.
The Algerian player added, “We are not satisfied with the participation, qualifying for the second round was our goal, and that was unfortunately not, but there are many positive points that we will keep and work to support and enhance them, and there are mistakes that we are working to remedy in the upcoming posts.”
“We did not spare no effort to delight the fans who supported us with their continuous encouragement and felt as if we were playing matches in Tunisia, some mistakes occurred in the Chelsea match and were the reason for our exit from the first round, we look forward to optimism,” Togai told Al -Jazeera Net.
On the other hand, the South African Sun Downs was the best club of the continent in the championship, as it won a victory over the Korean Ulsan (1-1) and lost in an exciting match against Borussia Dortmund (4-4) before it drew (0-0) with Fluminness and leaving the race.
In his second participation in the competition after the 2016 edition, Sun Downs – which reached the final of the African Champions League 2025 – seemed about to save the reputation of African football and reach the round of 16, but it dreamed of drawing the taste of the loss in the last group of the Group VI to get out of the group stage.
A catastrophic participation of Moroccan Wydad
Wydad Moroccan presented the worst participants to the African football, and only 5 clubs received 3 defeats in its three games in the first round, to raise a storm of criticism in the Moroccan football circles.
Unlike the Moroccan national team, in the last of his World’s appearance when the semi -finals in Qatar reached 2022, the Wydad players disappointed their fans and left the race with a catastrophic failure after the loss against Manchester City (2-2) and Juventus (4-1), then Al Ain Al -Emirati (2-1) to end their participation in the last position of the seventh group.
Before the start of his third participation in the World Cup, Wydad contracted with 6 players led by former Moroccan international Noureddine Amrabat, Burkini Aziz Ki and Syrian striker Omar Al -Soma, but he did not even achieve some of the expectations of his fans, and bid farewell to the championship quickly after 3 defeats.
The Moroccan football circles launched a scathing attack on Wydad, considering that the loss in 3 games in the first round is an indication that the participation is disastrous and insulting football in Morocco.
The assistant coach, Abdel Samad, received, in a press conference after the loss from Al Ain Al -Emirati, that Wydad did not provide the level that is appropriate for the team and the Moroccan football, adding that the players wereted a lot of goals, which was the reason for the loss (2-1).
“We prepared the team to the championship late, there are players who joined us recently, and we did not find time to homogeneously, we apologize for this participation that we promise to forget and prepare our fans to remedy in the upcoming competitions, we will hold our participation more comprehensive when returning to Morocco.”
The Moroccan Wydad participated in the 2017 and 2022 Club World Cup and lost its only match in both versions.