User:Mpejkrm/Sandbox/Wolfsburg 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (CAF)

The CAF qualification for the 2018 FIFA World Cup consisted of four rounds of competition, in which the 54 member nations competed for berths at the finals in Russia.

Format
The 54 national associations affiliated to CAF entered the qualifying to determine the continent’s five slots for the next World Cup.

The format began in November 2015 with a first round of 12 two-legged knock-out ties. The ties, involving the 24 lowest-ranked teams according to the FIFA World Rankings, were drawn on 17 July 2015.

The 12 winners joined the remaining 28 CAF entrants in the second round, which consists of 10 groups of 4. The winners of each group – held between June 2016 and September 2017 – advanced to a third round of 5 two-legged knock-out ties. The 5 winners of these ties – held in October and November 2017 – advanced to the 2018 FIFA World Cup finals.

Entrants
52 of the 54 FIFA-affiliated national teams from CAF entered qualification; 🇩🇯 Djibouti and 🇸🇴 Somalia did not enter. The seeding used to draw the first three rounds of the qualifiers was based on the FIFA World Rankings from July 2015. (World rankings shown in parentheses)

Teams in bold qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

First round
The first round of the AFC qualifiers saw the teams ranked 29–52 being paired up into 12 home-and-away series. The winners of these series proceeded to the second round.

The matchups were announced by FIFA on 17 July 2015. The 12 winners (in bold, below) advanced to the second round of the AFC qualifiers.


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Second round
The draw for the second round was made on 19 November 2015.

Third round
For the third and final round, the ten group winners from the second round played home-and-away ties, with the winner of each tie advancing to the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


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