Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for Africa. 51 teams took part (only Comoros and Djibouti did not enter), competing for 5 World Cup places.
Format
The qualification was composed of two Rounds. 9 teams entered the competition directly on the Second Round: the 5 teams that qualified for the 2002 World Cup Finals (Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia) and the 4 highest-ranking teams in the June 25, 2003 FIFA world rankings (Congo DR, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, and Morocco). The other 42 teams were paired 2-by-2 and played knock-out matches home-and-away. The 21 winners would advance to the Second Round.
In the Second Round, the 30 teams were divided in 5 groups of 6 teams each. Teams in each group would play against each other in a home-and-away basis. The team with most points in each group would qualify to the World Cup.
The competition also constituted the qualification competition for the 2006 African Nations Cup with the top three nations of each group qualifying (except for Egypt, which qualifies as the host nation, the fourth nation in Egypt's group qualifying in Egypt's place).
The African qualifying zone saw 4 out of 5 finals places going to World Cup debutants (Angola, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana). Nigeria missed out on a fourth consecutive finals appearance while Cameroon did not reach their fifth consecutive finals.
The African zone also featured a group of death — Group 3, which brought together Africa's most frequent World Cup qualifier Cameroon with the two eventual finalists of the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations: Egypt and the Ivory Coast.
First round
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Second round
Group 1
Togo qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Togo, Senegal, and Zambia qualified for the 2006 African Cup of Nations.
Group 2
Ghana qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Ghana, Congo DR, and South Africa qualified for the 2006 African Cup of Nations.
Group 3
Côte d'Ivoire qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, and Libya qualified for the 2006 African Cup of Nations (Egypt qualified directly as hosts.)
Group 4
Angola qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Angola, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe qualified for the 2006 African Cup of Nations.
Group 5
Tunisia qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Tunisia, Morocco, and Guinea qualified for the 2006 African Cup of Nations.
Qualified teams
The following five teams from CAF qualified for the final tournament.
1 Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.
Goalscorers
There were 506 goals scored in 190 matches, for an average of 2.66 goals per match. 11 goals