Team profile

Nigeria left it late to qualify for the World Cup - an 81st-minute winner against Kenya in the final qualifier seeing them through - and their preparations for South Africa have been similarly last minute. The decision to sack coach Shaibu Amodu following their third-place finish at the Africa Cup of Nations left his replacement, Swede Lars Lagerback, effectively just three weeks with his squad before the tournament, the Nigerian Football Federation has been fined by Fifa after changing their World Cup base late in the day, and there has also been confusion over the venues for their warm-up matches.

And while problems before the 1994 and 1998 World Cups did not overly hurt their progress in those tournaments, this squad does not contain the likes of Jay-Jay Okocha, Daniel Amokachi and Sunday Oliseh. John Mikel Obi is their only stand-out player, and he is recovering from a knee injury, while a squad that boasts plenty of pacey forwards also lacks quality midfielders.

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