DR Congo national football team
The Democratic Republic of Congo national football team, nicknamed the Leopards
The DR Congo national football team (French: équipe nationale de football de la République démocratique du Congo; Lingala: lisanga ya ndémbô ya Republíki ya Kongó Demokratíki), recognised by FIFA as Congo DR and by CAF as DR Congo, represents the Democratic Republic of the Congo in men's international football. It is controlled by the Congolese Association Football Federation. They are nicknamed Les Léopards, meaning The Leopards. The team is a member of FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF). DR Congo have previously competed variously as Belgian Congo, Congo-Kinshasa and Zaïre.
DR Congo have been ranked as high as 28th in the FIFA Rankings. They won the Africa Cup of Nations twice (in 1968 as Congo-Kinshasa and in 1974 as Zaire), and were the first Sub-Saharan African team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, as Zaire in 1974. They are also one of the most successful teams in the African Nations Championship with two titles (2009 and 2016), second only to Morocco with three. They qualified for the World Cup in 2026 as DR Congo, and are currently ranked 41st in the FIFA Rankings (July 2026).
History
Early history
The Congolese Association Football Federation was founded in 1919 when the country was not yet independent.
“DR Congo national football team” enters the record as the Democratic Republic of Congo national football team, nicknamed the Leopards. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Congo, national and football can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “DR Congo national football team” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.