Mali

While Mali is a major youth football power in both Africa and the world, they have never qualified for any senior FIFA World Cup finals in history. They have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations on 13 occasions.

Mali were suspended by FIFA on 17 March 2017 due to ‘government interference’ with the national football association, namely dissolving its executive committee. However, the side was re-instated by FIFA on 29 April after the executive committee was re-introduced by the Malian government.

Mali reached the 1972 African Nations Cup final, but lost 3–2 to Congo. They failed to qualify for the finals again until 1994 when they reached the semi-finals, an achievement repeated in 2002, 2004, 2012 and 2013.

They played their first World Cup qualifier in the year 2000. As part of the CAF’s qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup, Mali lost in the preliminary round to Libya. Two years later, the country hosted the 2002 African Cup of Nations.

Mali’s under-23’s team managed to qualify for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece. The team coached by Cheick Kone managed to reach the quarter-finals of the Olympic tournament before losing to Italy.

In the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, Mali beat Guinea-Bissau in the preliminaries. In the resulting second round, Mali finished fifth in its group. On 27 March 2005, riots broke out in Bamako after Mali lost a World Cup qualifier to Togo, 2–1 on a last minute goal.

In the 2010 African Nations Cup, Mali made football headlines for coming back from losing 4–0 with eleven minutes left to level 4–4 with Angola.

Rivalries

Tunisia

The rivalry between Mali and Tunisia has been evident in recent years in terms of the number of frequent matches, especially in the Africa Cup of Nations. The two teams met for the first time on 6 January 1974, during a friendly match in Bamako, which ended with a 1–0 victory for Mali. The match between the two teams in the 1994 African Cup of Nations, which was held in Tunisia, remains one of the biggest setbacks witnessed by the Tunisian national team, as Mali won the match 2–0, which led to Tunisia’s early exclusion from the tournament that was held on its soil. In recent years, the team’s matches have continued, as they met in the last three consecutive editions of the African Cup of Nations 2019, 2021 and 2023, all of which were in the group stage, where Mali won two matches and one ended in a draw. The two teams met in the third and final round of the 2022 World Cup qualification.

Two round-robin matches were played. However, Tunisia qualified for the World Cup after winning the first leg in Bamako 1–0 with an own goal from defender Moussa Sissako, and a goalless draw prevailed in the return match in Radès. This was Mali’s closest chance of qualifying for the World Cup. The competition record remains with Tunisia with a slight advantage. Tunisia won 6 matches, 3 of which ended in draws, and Mali won 5 matches.