They came to the 2026 World Cup as underdogs and nearly rewrote African football history. DR Congo — the Léopards — pushed right to the edge of the last 16 before a late winner from Harry ended their campaign, leaving coach Sébastien Desabre to pick through the wreckage of a near-miss that will sting for a long time.
Reaching the knockout rounds of a World Cup would have been a landmark moment — not just for DR Congo, but for African football broadly. The Léopards arrived in 2026 with genuine belief, and for long stretches of their group-stage run they looked like a side capable of making it count. Foot Mercato reports that Desabre emerged from the elimination with his head high, publicly expressing pride in his players despite the defeat — the kind of post-tournament statement that only lands when a squad has genuinely given everything.
The cruelty of it is in the timing. A late goal from Harry overturned what had looked, at one point during the match, like a place in the round of 16 for Congo — a turnaround confirmed across multiple reports. The Léopards did enough, almost, and then not quite.
Sébastien Desabre has been building something with this squad — a team that competes rather than participates. That distinction matters at a World Cup, where the gap between the two can feel enormous. The Léopards, by all accounts, competed. They pushed. They made it uncomfortable for whoever stood in their way.
Desabre's pride is not the hollow kind coaches reach for in defeat. It reads, according to Foot Mercato's report, like a man who watched his players deliver on a big stage and came up short through circumstance rather than character. That is a foundation. It is also cold comfort right now.
He didn't look like a man who was ready to apologise for anything.
For DR Congo, the 2026 World Cup ends here — but the conversation about what this squad can become does not. The Léopards now turn their attention to the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualification cycle, where a core of players who have just experienced a major tournament at the highest level will be expected to lead. That experience is not nothing. A squad that has felt what it is like to be one late goal away from a World Cup last 16 carries a different kind of hunger into the next campaign.
Desabre's task is to hold that group together — and to make sure the lesson of Harry's late winner becomes fuel rather than scar tissue.
They came to the 2026 World Cup as underdogs and nearly rewrote African football history. DR Congo — the Léopards — pushed right to the edge of the last 16 before a late winner from Harry ended their campaign, leaving…
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Foot Mercato
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“Stays on World Cup — different angle, same beat.”
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SELEÇÕESEvery World Cup has them — the supporters who travel further, shout louder, and paint themselves in colours that end up on the front pages. For DR Congo, that person is the fan known as 'Patrice Lumum
“Stays on World Cup — different angle, same beat.”
SELEÇÕESEvery World Cup has them — the supporters who travel further, shout louder, and paint themselves in colours that end up on the front pages. For DR Congo, that person is the fan known as 'Patrice Lumum
)
