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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 31 Mar 202631 Mar 2026<\/p>\n
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are the latest team to book their spot at the FIFA World Cup 2026 after their 1-0 win against Jamaica, following extra time, in their intercontinental playoff final.<\/p>\n
Former Manchester United defender Axel Tuanzebe netted the only goal in the first half of extra time to settle the tie after a tense affair in normal time.<\/p>\n
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The former England under-21 international bundled \u200cthe ball over the line from a corner in the 100th minute, but had to wait for more than a minute while it was checked for a possible handball before being \u2060confirmed as a goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made it very difficult for ourselves, perhaps the occasion got the better of us,\u201d said Tuanzebe, who now plays his club football for Burnley in the English Premier League.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo score the winning goal for your country\u2026 This is what every player dreams of<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so proud of what I could do for the country, I\u2019m so proud of the country, and now it is time to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n
It \u2060was as much as the Congolese deserved, having dominated proceedings in a fast-flowing match, albeit without many \u2060clear-cut chances at Estadio Guadalajara, which will be one \u2060of the three Mexican \u2060venues for the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The victory means there will be 10 teams from Africa lining up at the 2026 edition of football\u2019s showpiece event.<\/p>\n
The DRC defeated Nigeria in a playoff at the end of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) qualifier to reach the intercontinental stage.<\/p>\n
Jamaica beat New Caledonia on Thursday in their intercontinental pathway to reach this stage, while DRC\u2019s ranking \u2013 as one of the African sides \u2013 meant they were placed straight into the final.<\/p>\n
They have only once previously reached the finals \u2013 in 1974 as Zaire. Similarly, Jamaica have only reached the finals in 1998 in France.<\/p>\n
The DRC will now join the World Cup group of Portugal, Colombia and Uzbekistan, playing the former in their opening game.<\/p>\n
The last World Cup spot available will be decided in the other intercontinental final between Iraq and Bolivia, which will be played later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Manchester United defender Axel Tuanzebe scores in extra time as DR Congo beat Jamaica 1-0 in qualifying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[1926,86525,399,14111,3140,3,403,1079,99,153412],"class_list":{"0":"post-557819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-democratic-republic-of-the-congo","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jamaica","12":"tag-latin-america","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-world-cup-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}