The Most Common Scorelines in African Football

How do African international matches usually end? We counted the final scores of 12,017 matches involving African national teams.

The most common result

The most frequent scoreline is 1–0, which accounts for 20.5% of African matches (compared with 17.3% of all internationals worldwide). It is followed by 2–1 and 2–0.

Draws and goalless games

26.2% of matches involving African teams end in a draw, and 10.2% finish 0–0. Tight, low-scoring games are especially common in qualifiers, where a point away from home is valuable.

Why it matters

Low-scoring football means small margins: one goal, a set piece or a penalty often decides a match. That is also why Elo-based predictions give real chances to underdogs; try the match predictor. For tournament trends see goals per game at AFCON.

Top 15 scorelines

Score (winner first)	Matches	Share (Africa)	Share (world)
1–0	2,465	20.5%	17.3%
2–1	1,552	12.9%	12.8%
2–0	1,498	12.5%	12.3%
1–1	1,379	11.5%	9.9%
0–0	1,222	10.2%	8.0%
3–0	808	6.7%	7.0%
3–1	689	5.7%	6.1%
2–2	470	3.9%	3.9%
3–2	388	3.2%	3.7%
4–0	352	2.9%	3.9%
4–1	277	2.3%	2.9%
4–2	151	1.3%	1.5%
5–0	142	1.2%	2.0%
5–1	121	1.0%	1.3%
6–0	75	0.6%	1.2%

Scores are shown with the winning side first, so 2–1 includes both home and away wins. Source: international results dataset (CC0).

The most common result

Draws and goalless games

Why it matters

Top 15 scorelines

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