The African nations are having a really tough time vs. the odds at Internet gambling companies. After their first two matches, only one of the five teams had a win in online gambling. Ghana had four points in their group but they may not even make the knockout round while the other four teams were in even worse shape.
Internet gambling companies favored Ivory Coast to be the team from Africa that made the knockout round but that is not going to happen. The best chance for an African team to advance belongs to Ghana but they face a very tough finale in group play against Germany. A loss by Ghana would probably eliminate them. Ivory Coast is already done in Group G, Cameroon has been eliminated in Group E while Nigeria is pretty much out of it in Group B and South African Nations needs a lot of help in Group A.
Ghana has the most points of any African team with four through two matches but their chances of advancing are still not very good since they have to play Germany in a match they can’t afford to lose. Ivory Coast was supposed to be competitive in online gambling odds, but after a draw against Portugal they were blown out by Brazil. Portugal routed North Korea and that pretty much eliminated any chance Ivory Coast had. Cameroon has been a major disappointment. They have Samuel Eto’o but they are already out after losses to Japan and Denmark.
The host team in the tournament is South Africa and they need a lot of help to advance. The team played Mexico to a draw but now they need to blow out France in the last match and then have either Mexico or Uruguay win by a large margin in the last match. South Africa might actually have a chance to rout a France team in disarray but it is unlikely that either Mexico or Uruguay is going to lose big in a match where a draw gets them both through to the knockout round.
Nigeria has also been a major disappointment as they lost to Argentina and Greece but they might have the best chance of any African team to make the knockout round even though they have no points through two matches. If Nigeria can beat South Korea and Argentina beats Greece, it could be that Nigeria advances to the knockout round. Algeria is in bad shape in Group C as they would need to beat the U.S. and then have England lose to Slovenia.