DR Congo's road to 2026 is the most improbable route in the field. They finished second in their CAF qualifying group behind Senegal — missing an automatic spot — then had to beat Cameroon in a CAF playoff semifinal (2-1 in Rabat, Mbemba goal), then beat Nigeria on penalties in the CAF playoff final (after a 1-1 draw and Chancel Mbemba saving two in the shootout), then beat Jamaica 1-0 in extra time in the March 2026 inter-confederation playoff in Guadalajara. Axel Tuanzebe scored in the 100th minute. The country did not sleep that night.
The manager is Sébastien Desabre, the Frenchman who took the job in 2023 and has rebuilt the squad around the diaspora — Wissa at Newcastle, Bakambu at Betis, Wan-Bissaka (yes, that Wan-Bissaka) at West Ham, Mbemba at Lille, Tuanzebe at Burnley. Most of this team was born in Europe to Congolese parents. All of them chose the Léopards. That choice, after 52 years of international irrelevance and a country still living with the consequences of Mobutu and the wars that followed, is the quiet through-line of the whole campaign.
Group K is Colombia, Portugal, and Uzbekistan. Honest read: one win, probably over Uzbekistan, would give them a real shot at the Round of 16. Honest dream: anything beyond that. The 1974 squad is mostly still alive, in their seventies now, watching from Kinshasa. They've been waiting a long time.
Week 1 Update: Portugal 0, DR Congo 0 — and the Léopards just announced their arrival in the loudest possible silence. A clean sheet against Ronaldo, Fernandes, and Leão. Desabre's defense was immaculate, Tuanzebe was a wall, and the point earned against the group's top seed is the most significant result in Congolese football since 1974. Kinshasa did not sleep. The 1974 squad, in their seventies now, watched from home. They are no longer the only Léopards with a World Cup story to tell.
Matchday 2 Update: DR Congo 0, Colombia 1 — Muñoz's 76th-minute finish was the difference, and the Léopards are left wondering what might have been. Wissa and the attack pressed for most of the second half but couldn't find the breakthrough. One point from two matches — a draw with Portugal, a loss to Colombia — leaves DR Congo needing a result against Uzbekistan on Matchday 3 to have any chance of advancing. The road that started with Tuanzebe's 100th-minute goal against Jamaica isn't over yet, but it just got significantly steeper.
Matchday 3 Update: DR Congo 3, Uzbekistan 1 — Wissa finally had his night, the attack clicked in a way it hadn't yet, and the Léopards booked their Round of 32 place as one of the eight best third-place teams in the tournament. England await in Atlanta. The 1974 squad — watching from Kinshasa in their seventies — just got a sequel worth staying up for.
Round of 32 (July 1): The Léopards scored first through Brian Cipenga — the most electric five minutes in Congolese football since Tuanzebe's 100th-minute qualifier — and the dream briefly, beautifully, felt real. But Kane came. Two goals in eleven minutes, England through 2-1. DR Congo bow out having drawn with Portugal, beaten Uzbekistan, and led England in the knockouts. They came here with 52 years of waiting on their backs. They leave having given the 1974 generation a sequel nobody will forget.
The £55m Newcastle summer 2025 signing from Brentford, where he'd spent four years becoming one of the Premier League's most reliable pressing forwards. His first six months at Newcastle were wrecked by a knee injury picked up on international duty — DR Congo even faced a FIFA complaint over his workload — but he returned in March, scored in the playoff win over Jamaica, and is the main reason his country is in the World Cup. The team goes exactly as far as Wissa's fitness allows.
The 34-year-old striker who has played in France, Spain, China, Turkey, and is currently at Real Betis — the all-time leading scorer in DR Congo history (second on the list, 21 goals), and the emotional spine of this squad. After the Jamaica win he gave a post-match speech calling for peace in the eastern DRC, where war has displaced millions. The World Cup run matters to him in ways it doesn't to most footballers. He grew up in Vitry-sur-Seine outside Paris. This is his first and almost certainly only World Cup.
The former Manchester United center-back, now at Burnley, who scored the 100th-minute goal against Jamaica that sent DR Congo to the World Cup — his first international goal, in the biggest match his country has played in 52 years. He was born in Bunia in eastern DRC, moved to Rochdale at age four, came through United's academy under Mourinho. Spent years as squad depth at Old Trafford before dropping down the English pyramid. He is, right now, a national hero. Nigeria filed a FIFA complaint trying to rule him ineligible. FIFA threw it out.
Moambe chicken is the national dish — chicken simmered in palm-nut sauce (moambe is the red-orange pulp of the palm fruit, not to be confused with palm oil), served with rice, pondu (cassava leaves pounded smooth and cooked with peanut butter), and a side of fried plantain. Fufu — a stiff, smooth starchy mash of cassava and corn flour, pulled by hand and dipped — is the bread of the meal. Finish with a cold Primus beer, which is what every Kinshasa bar is serving.
African Village Restaurant in Irving is the closest to authentically Congolese — they serve fufu and pondu proper, and the Congolese community in the metroplex (small but tight) shows up on weekends. For a broader pan-African option with a bigger menu, Aggie's African Restaurant on Skillman in Dallas is reliable. Little Lagos up in Irving is Nigerian, not Congolese, but the cassava-leaf and plantain dishes are adjacent enough that a Kinshasa expat will recognize the shelves.
A soundtrack for the matches, the pregame, and the afterparty.
Congolese support is a moving sound system. Rumba Congolaise — the genre Papa Wemba and Koffi Olomide exported to every African capital and half the European ones — is the soundtrack to every match, before, during, and after. Expect drums, expect the guitar loops spilling out of phones in the concourse, expect a diaspora contingent from Brussels and Paris that will outnumber the fans who actually flew from Kinshasa. The flag is sky-blue and yellow with a red diagonal. The shirts are red, and there will be a lot of them. Sit near them and you'll find yourself in a dance circle you did not sign up for, being taught soukous steps by a man in a perfectly tailored three-piece suit — the Congolese *sapeur* tradition is real, and you will meet it.
DR Congo's last World Cup appearance was in 1974 as Zaire — the tournament where goalkeeper Mwepu Ilunga famously charged out of his wall and kicked a Brazilian free kick away before it was taken, giving away a direct free kick and becoming a YouTube loop for the next half-century. He later explained he was protesting the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, who had threatened the squad if they lost badly. They lost 3-0. He is probably the most-watched goalkeeper in history.