The African qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup have come to a close. All nine of the automatic qualifiers have claimed their spots and are ready to prepare for next year’s event. However, there is still a chance for one more African team to make it into the World Cup. This is via the somewhat arduous play-off process, which involves a number of other games to take place before the final play-offs next March. But for Malawi, the path to the World Cup has ended. To qualify for the play-offs, a team must be one of the top four performing runners-up across all nine groups. And with Malawi finishing third in their group, they’re out of the picture.
How did Malawi fail?
Malawi has had some ups and downs on its way through the qualifying. The team has been solid but got a reprieve against Equatorial Guinea when the team failed to board a flight for their upcoming match. As such, the Malawi football team took the win by default, giving them a slightly easier passage to move forward to the World Cup. Prior to this, the team had drawn with Liberia and lost in emphatic style to Tunisia.
However, after a loss in March to rivals Namibia, the Malawians were able to pull it back with a win in September against them. With the Equatorial Guinea game cancelled, Malawi were the default winners and went into their October game against São Tomé and Príncipe one game fresher than the other teams. But it was a shock outcome with São Tomé and Príncipe coming out on top.
Moreover, this was the first-ever football win for the team too. As such, Malawi is out of the World Cup and didn’t even make it to the best runner-up and a chance at the play-offs. What all this clearly shows is that it’s very important to track all the goings on when it comes to football. Checking the current team form is one of the best football betting tips you can get. But it means that a lot of statistics and game time need to be checked to ensure that all the data is being looked at. Not only should potential bettors look at this data, but they should also check whether the game is at home or away, team injuries and head-to-heads with the other team.
Betting markets for Malawi
Throughout its run at qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, betting sites have had a range of different betting odds and markets for Malawi’s football team. For example, in each of the matches, there were money lines for the full game. This meant that players could easily select whether they thought Malawi was going to win or lose against the opposite team.
Many betting sites also had point spreads in place for the team as well. This means guessing the number of goals that each team would score in a match-up, aiming to get as close as possible to the right number. Totals were also available for the Malawi team and its performance. These were offered as over or under bets and meant that bettors could select whether they thought the total number of goals scored between both teams would be over or under a specified amount. All of these bet types could also be placed for the first half, second half or both, to make the whole process a lot more interesting and exciting for those watching from the sidelines.
There was a wealth of other popular betting markets too. For example, there are prop bets available for both teams and players. These bets are linked to very specific events occurring within a game. Typically, they relate to things like which team will score first, whether a team will get more corners, or more fouls and so on. Player props work in a similar way, but are focused on specific players, such as whether a player will score a hat trick, get a goal, get a certain number of assists, and so on. These are much harder to predict and subsequently have higher odds attached. But they are often much more fun and make watching any game a little bit more exciting.