Benin took the lead in Group C of the African qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, following their 2-2 draw with Zimbabwe on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Gernot Rohr’s men had taken a comfortable lead thanks to Steve Mouni\u00e9, who took advantage of a goalkeeping error to open the scoring, and Dodo Dokou, who scored before half-time. But the second half was more complicated for the Beninese Cheetahs, who let their advantage slip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Zimbabwe responded before the break with a goal from Marshall Munetsi, before Knowledge Musona equalised in the second half with a superb strike after a well-constructed team move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
With this draw, Benin now have eight points and top spot in Group C. But the battle remains tight, with Rwanda and South Africa, who have a game in hand, close behind on seven points apiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Nigeria’s Super Eagles, currently struggling, will have a precious opportunity to revive their fortunes this Friday against Rwanda. A win would take them to six points, closing the gap on the group leaders ahead of a crucial duel with bottom-placed Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Benin took the lead in Group C of the African qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, following their 2-2 draw with Zimbabwe on Thursday evening. Gernot Rohr’s men had taken a comfortable lead thanks to Steve Mouni\u00e9, who took advantage of a goalkeeping error to open the scoring, and Dodo Dokou, who scored before half-time. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":429312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_trash_the_other_posts":false,"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"pays":[119],"personnalite":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-520094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football-news-benews-sport","8":"pays-benin"},"acf":{"type_de_publication":"opinion","nom_de_linstitution":"","description_de_linstitution":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520094"},{"taxonomy":"pays","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pays?post=520094"},{"taxonomy":"personnalite","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/personnalite?post=520094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}