{"id":240481,"date":"2026-08-06T19:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/north-africa\/egypt\/africa-how-cafs-head-to-head-rule-dumped-zambia-out-sent-malawi-to-wafcon-quarters\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:16:16","slug":"africa-how-cafs-head-to-head-rule-dumped-zambia-out-sent-malawi-to-wafcon-quarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/north-africa\/egypt\/africa-how-cafs-head-to-head-rule-dumped-zambia-out-sent-malawi-to-wafcon-quarters\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa: How CAF&#8217;s Head-to-Head Rule Dumped Zambia Out, Sent Malawi to WAFCON Quarters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"17\">If you thought Kenya&#8217;s Group A was the real &#8220;Group of Death&#8221; at WAFCON 2026, think again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"34\">Group C, featuring Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, and Egypt, just delivered a final-day plot twist so chaotic, so confusing, and so mathematically dramatic that it left fans, pundits, and even the players themselves utterly baffled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"18\">Wednesday night marked the final group-stage fixtures for group C, and on paper, the results looked straightforward enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n  <span style=\"font-size: 110%;\"><br \/>\nKeep up with the latest headlines on <a href=\"https:\/\/whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaIdDi8Bqbr263erhw1K\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WhatsApp<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/allafrica\/\" \/a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202608060550.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 North Africa <a title=\"Egypt\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/north-africa\/egypt\/\">Egypt<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you thought Kenya&#8217;s Group A was the real &#8220;Group of Death&#8221; at WAFCON 2026, think again. Group C, featuring Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, and Egypt, just delivered a final-day plot twist so chaotic, so confusing, and so mathematically dramatic that it left fans, pundits, and even the players themselves utterly baffled. Wednesday night marked the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[258,256,32184,17271,415,20827,5028,257,10073,7858,254,24869,4709],"class_list":["post-240481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-egypt","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-cafs","tag-dumped","tag-egypt-news","tag-headtohead","tag-malawi","tag-news","tag-quarters","tag-rule","tag-south-africa-today","tag-wafcon","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}