Super Eagles enters World cup record book

History beckons on the Super Eagles of Nigeria as they file out for the Brazil 2014 World Cup. Nigeria’s match with Bosnia Herzegovina on June 21 will not only be a platform to secure a round of 16 ticket, even ahead of the potentially difficult game with Argentina later in the competition, the game is a landmark duel in the FIFA World Cup history.

It will be the 800th game since the World Cup kicked off on July 13, 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay when France beat Mexico 4-1.

It is a rare record as the Nigeria- Bosnia Herzegovina game will be the only milestone encounter of the Brazil 2014 fiesta. The next milestone match, which will be the 900th game of the FIFA World Cup, will take place at Russia 2018. That will only be if the current format of the World Cup is retained.

In similar vein, it will be another 12 years from now before the 1,000th match of the World Cup is played. That will be in the 2026 edition which is yet to be decided.

For both Nigeria and Bosnia Herzegovina, the game is very crucial. If formbook is anything to go by, Nigeria will expect to have two wins in a row in the Group F encounter and thus scale into the next round.

Safet Susic, Bosnia Herzegovina’s coach also sees the match as the one to shape his team’s destiny.

He told the May edition of World Soccer: “Our crucial match will be Nigeria”. His claim was hinged on the almost the predictability of the outcome of his team’s opening game with Argentina having said that “you don’t have to be a big expert to see that Argentina are the clear favourites in our group”.

His thinking was that Bosnia will attempt to pick maximum points after their first match and then consolidate in the game with Iran.

The game with Bosnia Herzegovina will not be Nigeria’s sole contribution to the ever enriching FIFA World Cup record book. Earlier, at the USA’94, Nigeria conceded the 1,500th goal of the competition when Claudio Caniggia of Argentina scored the goal that put scores at 1-1 before his side’s eventual 2-1 defeat of Nigeria in a Group D game.

The Nigeria – Argentina match will eternally be remembered as the last match played by the legendary Diego Maradona.

Till date, there had been 2,208 goals in the World Cup since the first goal put in by France’ Lucien Laurent in the 4-1 defeat of Mexico 84 years ago. Laurent, one of the last survivors of the first World Cup, died aged 97 in 2005, 15 years before the last survivor, Argentina’s Francisco Varallo, died in 2010 at age 100.

World Cup’s last goal was scored by Spain’s Andres Iniesta in the 1-0 defeat of Netherlands four years ago. Another 92 goals need to be scored to reach the next World Cup goal-scoring milestone of 2,300.

Based on the average of goals per match in the last four tournaments (those with 32 teams), number 2,300 may be scored on June 25 when Nigeria meets Argentina. Who will score the next landmark goal? The last one was number 2,200, which was bagged in South Africa by Dutch forward, Arjen Robben during his team’s semi-final win over Uruguay.