International Football
PUYOL PITCHES NIGERIA AGAINST ARGENTINA FOR THE FIFTH TIME
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
Carles Puyol of Spain picked the ball from Pot 4 and it was Nigeria, pitching the country with the usual World Cup foes, Argentina! And so, for the fifth time in six World Cup finals, Nigeria will play Argentina.
This is the high point of the World Cup draws held Friday night at State Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. Sports Village Square had earlier predicted that Argentina and Overall, it will be the ninth clash of both teams as they had also met in last month in a friendly friendly match in Russia.
Nigeria won 4-2. Both teams are Group D, the same both team drew in their first encounter in USA. As in Brazil 2014, the Nigeria versus Argentina match will be the last group match.
The other teams in the group are Iceland and Croatia. Nigeria had played Iceland in the ancient past, 1981 in the days of Segun Odegbami and Muda Lawal. Nigeria has never met Croatia before.
The Super Eagles will open their World Cup account on June 16 at Kaliningrad with Croatia. That will be followed with the game with Iceland on June 22 at Volgograd before a potentially explosive game with Argentina at Saint Petersburg on June 26, a day after the 24th anniversary of their first ever meeting in Boston.
World Cup encounters with Argentina have always been won by the odd goal by the South Americans. The score line was 2-1 in 1994, 1-0 in 2002 and 2010 while that of Brazil 2014 was 3-2.
BEHOLD NIGERIA’S 2018 WORLD CUP FOES
ARGENTINA
- Argentina are competing in their 17th FIFA World Cup and have qualified for 11 consecutive editions starting with Germany 1974.
- The only player to score a hat-trick in two different editions is Argentina’s Gabriel Batistuta, who hit a treble against Greece in 1994 and another three against Jamaica in 1998.
- Argentina’s haul of 19 goals in the South American World Cup preliminaries is the lowest goal return by a qualifying team since the tournament first adopted the single-group format ahead of the 1998 finals.
- No team has been involved in as many World Cup penalty shoot-outs as Argentina, who have contested five and won four of them.
- With his three strikes against Ecuador in the decisive last qualifier for Russia 2018, Lionel Messi became the all-time joint-leading scorer in the South American Zone preliminary competition with 21 goals alongside Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, both players having overtaken Hernan Crespo’s career total of 19. Messi’s hat-trick was also the second by an Argentinian in World Cup qualification, after Gonzalo Higuain struck three times against Chile in 2011.
CROATIA
- Since making their tournament bow in France ’98, Croatia have only failed to qualify for the 2010 edition and will be making their fifth World Cup trophy bid in Russia.
- After finishing third in 1998, Croatia were eliminated in the group round during their next three participations. Davor Suker was the tournament’s top scorer in France with six goals.
- Four goals were scored in each of Croatia’s last four World Cup games. The results were a 2-2 draw with Australia in 2006, followed in 2014 by a 3-1 loss to Brazil, a 4-0 win over Cameroon and a 3-1 defeat by Mexico.
- For the third time in five qualifications, Croatia have reached the World Cup via the play-off route. The Vatreni overcame Ukraine ahead of the 1998 edition, beat Iceland to reach the 2014 finals and thwarted Greece to secure their place in the 2018 tournament.
- Having struck five times on the road to Russia 2018, Mario Mandzukic is the all-time leading Croatian scorer in qualifying, with ten goals, surpassing Bosko Balaban’s career tally of seven.
- Mandzukic previously found the net once in the 2010 preliminaries and four times on the 2014 trail. With three goals in the 6-0 rout of Kosovo, Mandzukic became the second Croatian to bag a hat-trick in qualifying, after Balaban was on target three times in 2001 during the 4-1 victory over Latvia.
ICELAND
- Iceland are one of two newcomers in the 2018 edition of the World Cup, the other being Panama. The islanders are the 34th European team to take part in the finals, after Bosnia and Herzegovina who debuted four years ago in Brazil.
- Not counting Iceland’s third-placed finish in the Youth Olympic Football Tournament in Nanjing in 2014, Strcikamir okkar are making their debut in the finals of a FIFA competition. The senior side reached the quarterfinals of the UEFA European Championship 2016, also in their maiden campaign.
- Iceland have played 106 World Cup qualifiers and won 28. Seven of those successes, or 25% of the total, came in the ten-match qualification push for Russia 2018.
- The islanders’ five home matches (all won) en route to Russia 2018 were played at the Laugardalsvollur stadium in Reykjavik, which has hosted every one of Iceland’s 51 home games in the history of World Cup qualification.
- Gylfi Sigurdsson was Iceland’s top scorer in qualification for Russia 2018, netting four goals, and is now his country’s all-time second-highest marksman in the preliminary tournament with eight goals overall, three behind Eidur Gudjohnsen. With his two goals against Ukraine on September 5, 2017, Sigurdsson became the only Icelander to net a brace in two different qualifying campaigns, having bagged the first in March 2013 during the 2-1 victory away to Slovenia.
Representatives from four national players’ unions on Thursday launched a new global organisation in Madrid, which they say will strengthen footballers’ rights and improve dialogue with governing bodies.
Opening a new front in the battle over who speaks for players, the International Footballers’ Association (AIF) was unveiled, with David Aganzo, president of Spain’s Association of Footballers (AFE) and a former head of the global union FIFPRO, appointed to lead the organisation.
Players’ unions from Brazil, Mexico and Switzerland were also represented.
The initiative drew a swift rebuke from FIFPRO, which said in a statement that Aganzo was acting out of self-interest and aligning himself with organisations linked to football governing bodies, as well as groups expelled from FIFPRO over alleged mismanagement.
Aganzo rejected the criticism, saying he “will not seek confrontation with FIFPRO”.
The launch comes amid strained relations between players’ unions and football authorities, particularly over the expanding international match calendar.
Relations between FIFA and FIFPRO deteriorated in 2024 after the union lodged a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the global governing body was abusing its dominant position by adding competitions without sufficient consultation.
Aganzo denied suggestions that the new initiative was backed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, but said “direct dialogue with FIFA” was essential.
AFE’s Extraordinary General Assembly approved the initiative in February with 99.8% of votes cast in favour of spearheading the creation of the AIF.
The same assembly also backed AFE’s withdrawal from FIFPRO, citing what it described as a “complete lack of transparency, as well as its total lack of dialogue with international bodies.”
“We represent over 30,000 footballers, and we come here with a new model aimed at safeguarding players’ rights and facilitating direct communication with all international bodies,” Aganzo told reporters.
“We are in contact with 15 to 20 unions already who were very aware of this moment and waiting for this announcement to make their move and join our initiative.”
He declined to identify any unions beyond those present.
Asked about a report that a senior envoy to U.S. President Donald Trump had urged FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at the upcoming World Cup, Aganzo urged caution.
“These are more political issues; on April 30th, I’ll be speaking to Gianni (Infantino) at the FIFA Congress, and we will discuss those things,” Aganzo said.
“People who want to go to the World Cup have to earn their place on sporting merit.”
-Reuters
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A new trial over the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will begin on Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team charged with negligent homicide nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in a mistrial.
An enduring presence in Argentina – from towering murals to tattoos, opens new tab – Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was recuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
A court in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses as it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.
His medical team has denied wrongdoing. The defendants are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse Ricardo Almiron, head nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni, and physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna. An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will be tried in a separate jury trial, with no date yet set.
Two months into the first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three judges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the corridors of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.
The retrial will require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial aired photographs, videos, audio recordings and forensic evidence. Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and his former wife, Claudia Villafane, have already testified.
Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering from surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was not provided.
The defense countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.
The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board to investigate Maradona’s death. The panel concluded his medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner.
-Reuters
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Aliou Cisse has been named coach of the Angola national team, the country’s football federation (FAF) announced on Thursday, 24 hours after the Senegalese left his post in Libya.
The 50-year-old coach, who led Senegal to their maiden Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022, ended his short stint with the Libyan national team on Wednesday, after taking charge in March 2025.
“Welcome, Aliou Cisse, head coach of the Angola national team,” the FAF said on Facebook. Angola, which failed to reach this year’s World Cup, will start their 2027 AFCON qualifying campaign in September.
-Reuters
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