Nigeria at the FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946, due to World War II.

The tournament consists of two parts, the qualification phase and the final phase (officially called the World Cup Finals). The qualification phase, which currently take place over the three years preceding the Finals, is used to determine which teams qualify for the Finals. The current format of the Finals involves 32 teams competing for the title, at venues within the host nation (or nations) over a period of about a month. The World Cup Finals is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the 2006 tournament final.

Nigeria have appeared in the finals of the FIFA World Cup on six occasions, the first being in 1994 where they reached the second round. Their sixth and most recent appearance at the finals was the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.^[1]

FIFA World Cup record

FIFA World Cup record
Year	Host(s)	Round	Position	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA
1930	Uruguay	Did not enter
1934	Italy
1938	France
1950	Brazil
1954	Switzerland
1958	Sweden
1962	Chile	Did not qualify
1966	England	Withdrew^{[n 1]}^[2]
1970	Mexico	Did not qualify
1974	West Germany
1978	Argentina
1982	Spain
1986	Mexico
1990	Italy
1994	United States	Round of 16	9th	4	2	0	2	7	4
1998	France	Round of 16	12th	4	2	0	2	6	9
2002	South Korea and Japan	Group stage	27th	3	0	1	2	1	3
2006	Germany	Did not qualify
2010	South Africa	Group stage	27th	3	0	1	2	3	5
2014	Brazil	Round of 16	16th	4	1	1	2	3	5
2018	Russia	Group Stage	21st	3	1	0	2	3	4
2022	Qatar	To be decided
World Cup total			6/21	21	6	3	12	23	30

Notes

^ All African nations withdrew due to a lack of qualifying berths.

By Opponent

FIFA World Cup matches (by team)
Opponent	Total	Wins	Draws	Losses	GF	GA	GD
Argentina	5	0	0	5	4	9	−5
Bulgaria	2	2	0	0	4	0	+4
Greece	2	1	0	1	3	2	+1
Iceland	1	1	0	0	2	0	+2
Spain	1	1	0	0	3	2	+1
Bosnia and Herzegovina	1	1	0	0	1	0	+1
South Korea	1	0	1	0	2	2	0
England	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
Iran	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
Italy	1	0	0	1	1	2	−1
Sweden	1	0	0	1	1	2	−1
Paraguay	1	0	0	1	1	3	−2
France	1	0	0	1	0	2	−2
Croatia	1	0	0	1	0	2	−2
Denmark	1	0	0	1	1	4	−3

By match

World Cup	Round	Opponent	Score	Result	Venue	Nigeria scorers
1994	Group stage	Bulgaria	3–0	W	Dallas	Yekini, Amokachi, Amuneke
		Argentina	1–2	L	Foxborough	Siasia
		Greece	2–0	W	Foxborough	George, Amokachi
	Round of 16	Italy	1–2 (aet)	L	Foxborough	Amuneke
1998	Group stage	Spain	3–2	W	Nantes	Adepoju, Zubizarreta (og), Oliseh
		Bulgaria	1–0	W	Paris	Ikpeba
		Paraguay	1–3	L	Toulouse	Oruma
	Round of 16	Denmark	1–4	L	Saint-Denis	Babangida
2002	Group stage	Argentina	0–1	L	Ibaraki	—
		Sweden	1–2	L	Kobe	Aghahowa
		England	0–0	D	Osaka	—
2010	Group stage	Argentina	0–1	L	Johannesburg	—
		Greece	1–2	L	Bloemfontein	Uche
		South Korea	2–2	D	Durban	Uche, Yakubu (pen)
2014	Group stage	Iran	0–0	D	Curitiba	—
		Bosnia-Herzegovina	1–0	W	Cuiabá	Odemwingie
		Argentina	2–3	L	Porto Alegre	Musa (2)
	Round of 16	France	0–2	L	Brasília	—
2018	Group stage	Croatia	0–2	L	Kaliningrad	—
		Iceland	2–0	W	Volgograd	Musa (2)
		Argentina	1–2	L	Saint Petersburg	Moses (pen)

Squads

Record players

No.	Name	Matches	World Cups
1	Joseph Yobo	10	2002, 2010 and 2014
2	Jay-Jay Okocha	9	1994, 1998 and 2002
3	Finidi George	8	1994 and 1998
	Sunday Oliseh	8	1994 and 1998
	Peter Rufai	8	1994 and 1998
	Rashidi Yekini	8	1994 and 1998
	Vincent Enyeama	8	2002, 2010 and 2014
8	Mutiu Adepoju	7	1994 and 1998
	Uche Okechukwu	7	1994 and 1998
	John Obi Mikel	7	2014 and 2018
	Ahmed Musa	7	2014 and 2018

Top goalscorers

No.	Name	Goals	World Cups
1	Ahmed Musa	4	2014 (2) and 2018 (2)
2	Daniel Amokachi	2	1994
	Emmanuel Amunike	2	1994
	Kalu Uche	2	2010
5	Finidi George	1	1994
	Samson Siasia	1	1994
	Rashidi Yekini	1	1994
	Mutiu Adepoju	1	1998
	Tijani Babangida	1	1998
	Victor Ikpeba	1	1998
	Sunday Oliseh	1	1998
	Wilson Oruma	1	1998
	Julius Aghahowa	1	2002
	Yakubu	1	2010
	Peter Odemwingie	1	2014
	Victor Moses	1	2018

References

^ "Nigeria beat Ethiopia to book berth in Brazil". BBC Sport. 16 November 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
^ "VIII WORLD CUP (ENGLAND 1966) QUALIFYING STAGE". Lingua Sport. Retrieved 2 January 2012.^{[permanent dead link]}

External links

[Protest-2] All African nations withdrew due to a lack of qualifying berths.

[1] "Nigeria beat Ethiopia to book berth in Brazil". BBC Sport. 16 November 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2014.

[3] "VIII WORLD CUP (ENGLAND 1966) QUALIFYING STAGE". Lingua Sport. Retrieved 2 January 2012.^{[permanent dead link]}

[1]

[n 1]

[2]

v t e Nigeria national football team
General	Nigeria Football Federation History Managers
Venues	Godswill Akpabio International Stadium Abuja National Stadium Lagos National Stadium Ahmadu Bello Stadium
Statistics	All-Time Record World Cup record Individual Records All-time goalscorers
Results	1949–59 1960–69 1970–79 1980–89 1990–99 2000–09 2010–19 2020–present Unofficial matches
Players	Players (by caps) Nigerian foreign players Born outside Nigeria
World Cup Finals	1994 1998 2002 2010 2014 2018
CAN Finals	1963 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1988 1990 1992 1994 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2013 2019 2021 2023
Other Cup's tournaments	African Nations Championship
Noted rivalries	Ghana
Games's tournaments	Olympic Games All-Africa Games
Other NFF teams	Men Under-23 Under-20 Under-17 Beach Soccer Women

v t e Countries at the FIFA World Cup
Team appearances All-time table
AFC	Australia² China Indonesia¹ Iran Iraq Japan Kuwait North Korea Qatar Saudi Arabia South Korea United Arab Emirates
CAF	Algeria Angola Cameroon DR Congo¹ Egypt Ghana Ivory Coast Morocco Nigeria Senegal South Africa Togo Tunisia
CONCACAF	Canada Costa Rica Cuba El Salvador Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Panama Trinidad and Tobago United States
CONMEBOL	Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Paraguay Peru Uruguay
OFC	New Zealand
UEFA	Austria Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Czech Republic¹ Denmark East Germany³ England France Germany¹ Greece Hungary Iceland Israel² Italy Netherlands Northern Ireland Norway Poland Portugal Republic of Ireland Romania Russia¹ Scotland Serbia¹ Slovakia¹ Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine Wales
¹ Considered a successor team by FIFA, or have competed under another name(s). ² Have been member of multiple confederations. ³ Team and national federation no longer exist.