Nigeria lose to South Africa, fail to qualify for Women’s World Cup for first time

Nigeria will not compete in the 2027 Women’s World Cup, marking the first time the country’s national team will miss the tournament.

On Thursday night in Rabat, Morocco, the Super Falcons, who are 10-time and reigning WAFCON champions, lost a crucial qualification playoff match 2-1 to South Africa. Nigeria needed to win to compete in the FIFA interconfederation playoffs, which begin later this year.

Nigeria had already been eliminated from the continental tournament when they lost in the quarterfinals Sunday to Cameroon, who will compete in the WAFCON final Sunday against debutants Malawi.

South Africa win!
🇿🇦 2 – 1 🇳🇬

The Banyana Banyana are qualified for the Preliminary Phase of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ Play-Off Tournament!#FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/wGfQs3xi33

— FIFA Women’s World Cup (@FIFAWWC) August 13, 2026

After a scoreless first half, 30-year-old South African striker Thembi Kgatlana scored a goal off the counterattack in the 56th minute. Hildah Magaia received a through ball into South Africa’s attacking half and drove the ball toward the end line, drawing two Nigerian defenders to her before she released a cross for a wide-open Kgatlana to finish with ease.

About 20 minutes later, Banyana Banyana doubled their lead against a seemingly deflated Nigerian side that failed to clear a corner kick. Midfielder and captain Refiloe Jane pounced on the ball near the top of the penalty box and fired off a shot that deflected off Nigerian midfielder Christy Ucheibe and past goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie.

Nigeria were granted a sliver of reprieve when a handball committed by Jane in South Africa’s penalty box resulted in a red card for the captain and a penalty kick for Nigeria. Ucheibe converted her shot, punching it past keeper Kaylin Swart. Buoyed with hope, the Super Falcons pressed hard, forcing more saves out of Swart, but were unable to equalize.

Swart’s performance was immense in protecting South Africa’s lead; with five saves — including a full-stretch dive to paw a header by Nigerian forward Uchenna Kanu away from the net — she was awarded Woman of the Match.

The Nigerian women’s side join the men in missing out on a World Cup, as the Super Eagles also failed to advance out of the playoffs to compete in this summer’s World Cup.

Nigeria entered WAFCON as one of the favorites, but their campaign did not reflect that of a side that has won the tournament 10 times, far more than any other team. (The only other victors have been South Africa and Equatorial Guinea, who have won WAFCON once and twice.) They were stunned in a 3-2 upset loss to Malawi in their opening game, forcing them essentially into must-win scenarios with the other teams in their group, Zambia (whom they met in the quarterfinals of last year’s tournament) and Egypt.

Victories against those two teams, combined with a tiebreaker that favored the number of goals scored, allowed Nigeria to squeeze past Zambia into the quarterfinals, finishing second in the group behind finals-bound Malawi.

Leading to Thursday’s match, Super Falcons coach Justin Madugu faced questions about how he would line up his squad against South Africa. He was hired as an interim in September 2024 after the departure of Randy Waldrum and guided the team to its completion of Mission X last year when Nigeria won their 10th WAFCON title. This year’s campaign featured a different starting XI in each match, and Madugu pointed to the challenges he faced in maintaining a sense of consistency with Nigeria’s international calendar.

“In the national team, you have just (a) few days,” he told journalists at a prematch news conference Monday. “If not for a competition of this magnitude, you don’t have more than four, five days mostly, maybe one week with the players, and it’s not sufficient enough for you to be able to get everybody to understand what you want, the philosophy, and them perfect everything within just that one-week period.

“In a year, how many matches do you get to play? How many windows do you have? And how many do we utilize? So it’s not something that’s as easy as people would think.”

Nigeria are the highest-ranked African women’s team in the world at No. 36, according to FIFA, and have been one of seven nations to have qualified for every Women’s World Cup since the first edition in 1991.

Their activity during the international windows in the lead-up to WAFCON has been sporadic. After playing a friendly against Cameroon on March 3, the Super Falcons did not meet during the April window and reconvened in June, just over a month before WAFCON started, with a pair of fixtures against Senegal on June 5 and June 8. Last year, they failed to schedule any friendlies in the final FIFA window between November and December.

South Africa, who were 2022 WAFCON champions, will continue their journey toward the World Cup in Brazil at the interconfederation playoffs, which will see them pitted against Uzbekistan or Chinese Taipei; Papua New Guinea; or a team from CONMEBOL in South America.

Ghana will compete in the same playoffs, having beaten Ivory Coast 2-1 earlier Thursday in Casablanca, Morocco.