In exactly 3 months and one day, the first game of the
FIFA World Cup in Russia will kick-start the most longed for football competition in the world. While you wait for the sixth time our beloved Naija enters the Kaliningrad Stadium on June 16th and expect the
Super Eagles to beat Croatia, have a look at some interesting and somewhat surprising facts about the
World Cup.
1. All World Cups have been won so far by either European or South American team. A total of 11 times for Europe and 9 times for South America.
2. The biggest European winner is Germany with 4 titles and the highest South American winner is Brazil with 5 titles.
3. While Germany is the biggest European winner, paradoxically it’s also the team with the record of most finals lost. This happened in 1966, 1982, 1986 and 2002. Who would have thought?
4. Brazil is the only country who has participated in every edition of the FIFA World Cup.
5. Except for South Africa, all host countries have made it to at least the second round. In about 30% of the cases – that is 6/20 – they have been champions too. Last time a host was champion was in 1998 (France).
6. The first African team to ever take part in the FIFA World Cup was Egypt in 1934, four years after the first World Cup edition, in Montevideo, Uruguay. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it to the second round.
7. After a long period of absence, Africa re-entered the World Cup in 1970 with Morocco qualifying for the first round.
8. The first African team to win a game in the Cup was Tunisia. They made it in 1978 by beating Mexico 3-1, thus restoring the African football pride.
9. Guess what? Naija is the African country who has qualified the most times for the World Cup. As mentioned above, this will be the 6th time Nigeria qualifies.
10. Retired German striker Miroslav Klose is the best scorer of all times. In 24 games he scored a total of 16 goals.
11. Talking about retired players, did you know that Italian goalkeeper Dino Zoff was the oldest player winning this competition? It happened in 1982 when he was 40 years old. Never too old to dream.
12. Do you know what’s a back-to-back? It means winning again four years later. So far only Brazil and Italy have made it. The biggest South American country won in 1958 and repeated in 1962 and the Italians made it in 1934 and again in 1938.
What are your thoughts about Naija's chances in this World Cup? Don’t forget to support our beloved Super Eagles by betting on them on June 15th.
But, of course, you don’t have to wait until then to start placing your bets and winning. We have a wide variety of sports and football leagues to choose from.
Join Betway Nigeria now and place your bets on the main African teams as well as on the super-exciting English Premier League, Spanish La Liga or German Bundesliga!
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