FRANCE 98 – Team Detail

The Nigerian Football Federation was created in 1945. It was the first year that a competition was organised bringing together clubs from Lagos, Port Harcourt and Calabar. The championship was also renamed the Challenge Cup replacing the Governor’s Cup as it had been known under their British colonisers. It was only several years later that the Challenge Cup became a national trophy when other top clubs from different provinces were invited to play. However, the clubs had to wait till 1990 for the professional league to be introduced.

Nigerian clubs have done well in the continental club competitions even though they haven’t won the ‘Blue Riband’ event The African champions Cup. Shooting Stars Club (1976), Rangers Enugu (1977) and the BBC Lions (1990) have won the African Cup Winners Cup while Shooting Stars (1976) and Bencel Insurance (1994) won the CAF Cup.

The national side claimed its first major trophy when they won the 1980 African Nations Cup in front of its own fans. They repeated their success in 1994 with a team made up principally of players who played for European clubs. 1994 also saw Nigeria compete in the World Cup finals for the first time. They finished top of their group in front of Bulgaria, who went on to be semi-finalists, and Argentina, before going down to Italy in the last 16 (2-1 in extra-time).

Confirmation that they were among the strongest footballing nations came in Atlanta in 1996 when they captured the gold medal beating Brazil 4-3 in the semi-final and then downing Argentina 3-2 in the final. Because of these performances players like Victor Ikpeba (AS Monaco), Daniel Amokachi (Besiktas), Finidi George (Real Betis) and Daniel Amunike (Barcelona) are now justifiably part of the footballing aristocracy.