Nine of the ten African teams advanced to the knockout stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Germany suffers back-to-back defeats to Ecuador and Paraguay. European champions Spain fail to beat World Cup debutants, Cape Verde. Morocco knocked the Netherlands out of the tournament with a commanding performance.

At first glance, these results might suggest that football is undergoing a global shift: that new powers are emerging beyond Europe, that European football is in decline, or perhaps that both trends are unfolding simultaneously.

A closer look, however, points to a very different conclusion. Rather than signaling the end of Europe’s supremacy, these outcomes may in fact underscore it. The steady rise of several non-European national teams is, to a large extent, another by-product of the extraordinary development European football has undergone in recent decades, across virtually every aspect of the game.

Europe’s Africans—or Africa’s Europeans?

A common refrain, often voiced with a touch of sarcasm, points to the growing number of Black players and footballers of immigrant backgrounds in European national teams. Some go further, attributing these teams’ successes not to Europe itself, but to the countries from which the players’ parents, or even grandparents, originally came.

What this argument often overlooks, however, are a few essential questions. Were these players not born or raised in the countries they now represent? Are they not products of those countries’ football academies, youth development systems, talent programmes, clubs, and domestic leagues?

Going a step further, shouldn’t these players also be seen as a product of the multicultural societies that many Western countries have become? Aren’t they, in many ways, a reflection of the political, legal, cultural, and economic systems that have embraced them and their communities in their adopted homelands?

Is Kylian Mbappé, born to a Cameroonian father and an Algerian mother, African or French? Is Lamine Yamal, whose mother is from Equatorial Guinea and whose father is Moroccan, African, or Spanish, more specifically Catalan, where he was raised? The same question could be asked of countless other players.

The point here is not one of identity, which is naturally layered and encompasses all of these backgrounds. Rather, it is about the institutional and civic framework that enabled their rise, and the rise of so many others like them, to the highest level of the game.

Less widely held, and perhaps less popular, is the opposite view, one that the author of these lines is inclined to share. The remarkable improvement in the performance of African national teams, for example, is largely a direct and indirect result of two factors.

The first is the growing number of players born or raised in Europe who, for one reason or another, choose to represent the national teams of their parents’ or grandparents’ countries. The second is the increasing number of African footballers who have established themselves in European leagues, benefiting from their professionalism, structure, and continuous development.

This extends far beyond Europe’s traditional “big five” leagues in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. It also includes lower divisions, such as the English Championship and France’s Ligue 2, as well as leagues in Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Greece, Turkey, Austria, the Nordic countries, and even across Eastern Europe.

The same dynamic can be observed beyond Africa. It is difficult, for instance, to explain the Curaçao national football team reaching the World Cup without taking into account the country’s large diaspora community in the Netherlands and the significant number of its players who have developed there.

Europe Without Rival

Against the backdrop of Europe’s overwhelming dominance in club competitions and domestic leagues, it is also worth noting the steady decline of South America’s domestic football over the past two decades. South America is the only continent that has historically rivalled Europe for global football supremacy and remains the cradle of many of the sport’s greatest legends.

The continent’s traditional powerhouses, including Boca Juniors, Palmeiras, Club Atlético Independiente, Santos FC, Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas, Fluminense FC, and River Plate, are no longer the forces they were in the twentieth century. The contrast is evident when comparing their modest performances in recent editions of the FIFA Club World Cup with the stature and success they once enjoyed in the Intercontinental Cup, the tournament jointly organised by UEFA and CONMEBOL between 1960 and 2004, which pitted the winners of the UEFA Champions League against the champions of the Copa Libertadores.

This is compounded by the fact that the overwhelming majority of players representing Latin American national teams now play in Europe. That ranges from Lionel Messi, widely regarded as the world’s best player, to lesser-known defenders from Ecuador and Paraguay.

The prominence of European domestic competitions is further reinforced by the failure of ambitious football projects elsewhere in the world to develop into genuine rivals, despite the considerable financial resources behind them. Over the past three or four decades, for example, neither the United States nor Canada has succeeded in turning Major League Soccer into a competition comparable to Europe’s leading leagues, or even to many of its second-tier ones. The league has largely attracted global stars only after they had reached the twilight of their careers, including David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Luis Suárez, Lionel Messi, and others.

While the United States men’s national team has made clear strides over the past two decades, the Saudi national team has experienced more uneven progress, despite the country’s recent efforts to transform its domestic league into a destination for some of the world’s biggest stars. Even so, the Saudi experiment does not yet appear capable of developing into a new global centre of football. The project remains relatively young and subject to constant change. It focuses on attracting players after they have established themselves in Europe, rather than developing them from the outset. It also lacks meaningful integration with neighbouring football ecosystems, whether in Qatar and the UAE or across the continent more broadly.

At the opposite end of Asia, attempts to build globally competitive domestic leagues have also fallen short, particularly in Japan and China. Neither country has succeeded in turning its league into a factory for world-class talent or a competition capable of attracting audiences beyond its borders. While Japanese football has enjoyed remarkable progress, the Chinese experiment has ended in spectacular failure. China’s national team has slipped into the continent’s second, if not third, tier after once establishing itself among Asia’s leading sides.

One possible explanation for why national teams such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Iran often appear more assured on the World Cup stage than their Arab Asian counterparts, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Qatar, is that a greater number of their players have gained experience in European leagues. This is despite the fact that Japan or Australia are by no means immune to defeat against Arab teams in the AFC Asian Cup or in Asian World Cup qualifying.

Perhaps the clearest evidence of Europe’s structural dominance in world football today is the emergence of two major football powers over the past three decades. France won the World Cup in 1998 and 2018 and is once again among the favourites to lift the trophy. Spain, another leading contender, joined the exclusive list of World Cup winners by claiming the title in 2010.

There are other telling examples. Croatia reached the 2018 World Cup final and the 2022 semi-finals, achievements that far exceeded expectations for a country of its size. Meanwhile, Brazil, the most successful nation in World Cup history, has turned to European expertise by appointing Carlo Ancelotti as head coach, hoping to end a title drought that has lasted nearly a quarter of a century.

That said, it is important to keep in mind that Japan’s footballing rise was rooted in a long-term domestic project that began in the 1980s. Morocco’s run to the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup, while greatly aided by players of Moroccan descent born across the Mediterranean, also reflected the country’s own institutional progress. The professionalisation of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, sustained technical stability, and the establishment of the Mohammed VI Football Academy on the outskirts of Rabat all played a crucial role. Together, the