Egypt was the first African country to qualify for the World Cup finals. For the games held in 1954 in Switzerland, Egypt was the only applicant from a continent whose many territories were still colonies of European powers.
Egypt faced Italy. It was “a task that proved well beyond them,” as the records put it. They failed to make it.
Prior to Egypt’s attempt to play at the games, the World Cup was basically a European and South American thing with the USA and Mexico always there.
There were no qualifying rounds for the first games in 1930. FIFA invited countries to take part. Many wanted to but did not have the means for the long boat journey to Uruguay which won the right to host the games because it was the only country willing to build a new stadium and host all participants for free.
Africa’s place was bound to Europe’s and Asian’s against whom they had to play a qualifier. In 1958, Sudan took part in the preliminaries beating Syria in the last Group 4 stage.
But that was as far as they went. Ghana made its first attempt as an independent country for the 1962 games in Chile.
For the 1966 games, Asia, Africa, and Oceania were grouped to provide one representative. North Korea beat Australia to make it. There was no African team.
The 1966 games will be remembered by many Ghanaians because of the numerous glossy colored pictures of the red-shirted victorious English team that were sent to the Information Services offices that were common in Ghana those days – a carry-over from the Kwame Nkrumah times.
One of the jubilant English players was full of smiles even though he had lost all his front teeth. That controversial 3-2 English goal in the finals was more a feature of the cinema documentaries than of pictures.
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