51 African countries entered the race for 5 spots at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in a qualification process that doubled as one for the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations. In the final qualification round, teams were organized into five groups of six teams, with winners qualifying for the World Cup and the top three for the continental tournament. More matches were needed to qualify – while at both the 1998 and 2002 32-team World Cups, 3 of the 5 African teams played only 6 matches to get to the finals, here 3 of the 5 teams that qualified played 12 matches.