What counts as a trophy, where the data comes from, and how the site stays accurate.
TrophyDrought tracks the wait for a major international trophy across 211 national and territorial teams: 51 previous winners and 160 still waiting for their first. This is the site's editorial coverage, not a complete register of FIFA member associations.
To keep the comparison fair across confederations, we count exactly two tiers of competition:
We deliberately don't count the FIFA Confederations Cup, UEFA Nations League, Olympic football, or regional sub-tournaments (like the AFF Championship or Gulf Cup) — not because they don't matter, but because including them would make the comparison across confederations inconsistent. A few Waiting Room entries mention these competitions for context, but they don't count as the tracked "last trophy."
Every date is based on the official result of the final match. For finals decided in extra time or penalties, we use the approximate final-whistle time rather than kickoff. For older tournaments decided by round-robin final groups or final league standings rather than a single match (common before the 1980s), we use the best available date for that stage of the competition — these are flagged in the country's "story" section where relevant.
Long reads are prepared and reviewed by the TrophyDrought Editorial Team. We check tournament claims against FIFA and the relevant confederation and distinguish major titles from regional competitions. Corrections can be submitted through the Contact page.
We follow the latest verified governing-body ruling for title counts and counters, while explaining any appeal. Senegal won the 2025 AFCON final 1–0 after extra time on the field on 18 January 2026. CAF's Appeal Board changed the recorded result to a 3–0 forfeit win for Morocco on 17 March 2026. Accordingly, we count Morocco's 1976 and 2025 titles and Senegal's 2021 title, won in February 2022. Senegal appealed to CAS. A final CAS award has not been verified in the linked official material; we do not treat the appeal or its scheduled hearing as a verdict. Morocco's counter uses the January final date, not the March ruling date.
CAF ruling · CAS appeal · CAS hearing note · CAS official releases.
The 51 trophy-winning nations each have a full page with their trophy history, major finals, and FAQ. For the 160 teams in the Waiting Room, we show their best-ever tournament result where one exists, rather than inventing detail that isn't there — some countries have a rich near-miss story, others are still building their program, and we'd rather be accurate than pad the page.
The next major senior continental tournaments include the AFC Asian Cup and Africa Cup of Nations in 2027; UEFA Euro 2028 follows in 2028. When a tournament ends, we re-check every affected country's "last trophy" entry and republish — there's no automatic detection, so there can be a short lag between a final whistle and the site reflecting it.
If you spot an error — a wrong date, an outdated "last trophy," or a broken flag — we want to fix it. This site is built from a structured dataset, so corrections are usually quick to make.