Interestingly, Nigeria had a large number of players who had naturalised and featured for other countries at the World Cup. Some of these top players are Bukayo Saka – England, Noah Okafor and Manuel Akanji – Switzerland, Jamal Musiala and Karim Adeyemi – Germany, Ike Ugbo and Samuel Adekugbe – Canada
RECORDS BROKEN AT THE WORLD CUP
Several records were broken at the just concluded Mundial. Some of these records had been existing for long, but as they say, records are meant to be broken. For instance, Messi became the first player since the introduction of knockouts after Jazinho to score in all the rounds. He scored in the group stage, round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals.
Mbappe became the second player to score a World cup final hatrick. Argentina became the second team since Spain in 2010 to win the World after losing their first match. France and Argentina became the first finalists to lose at the group stage. Messi broke the all-time record for most games played at a Men’s FIFA World Cup.
The final was Messi’s 26th World Cup game, beating the previous record of 25 set by former Germany midfielder Lothar Matthaus.
First Ever Two-Time Golden Ball Winner
Messi was presented with the Golden Ball award after the final, having been voted as the official Player of the Tournament.
He had also won the award at the 2014 World Cup. No other player has received the prize twice.
Most Player Of The Match Awards – 11
Messi was named as the official Player of the Match in five of Argentina’s seven games at Qatar 2022.
He has now won 11 World Cup Player of the Match awards during his career. The previous record was seven set by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Most Player Of The Match Awards At One World Cup – 5
The only games at Qatar 2022 to feature Messi and not result in him winning the Player of the Match were Argentina’s 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia and their 2-0 victory over Poland.
Mohammed Alowais and Alexis Mac Allister won the awards in those games.
Most Goal Contributions – 21
Messi is only joint-fourth on the all-time World Cup list of leading scorers with 13 goals.
But he is now top of the pile in terms of goals + assists with 21.
First Player To Register An Assist At Five World Cups
Ronaldo became the first player in World Cup history to score at five different tournaments when he netted for Portugal at Qatar 2022.
Messi has only scored at four World Cups but became the first man ever to record an assist at five tournaments – 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022.
Most World Cups Played For Argentina
Messi became the first Argentine in World Cup history to perform at five different tournaments.
Diego Maradona and Javier Mascherano both played in four World Cups. Angel Di Maria joined Maradona and Mascherano on four by playing at Qatar 2022.
- Most World Cup Goals For Argentina
Messi more than doubled his tally of World Cup goals during Qatar 2022 by scoring seven times.
That took his all-time World Cup goal count to 13, breaking the previous record of 10 set by Gabriel Batistuta.
Morocco became the first Africa country to reach the semi finals and defeated the World #1 team (Belgium).
Cameroon became the first African country to beat Brazil at the World Cup
First time two Nigerians performed at the World cup. Kiss Daniel and Davido
Qatar built the first dismantled stadium ever. The 974 stadium was build with 974 containers used in shipping materials that was used in building stadiums used for the tournament. Its also Qatar’s International calling code. It was shipped out to Mexico after the last match played there between Netherlands vs Argentina.
UPSETS OF THE TOURNAMENT
There were some really shock results at the tournament. The first big upset was the German versus Japan which ended 2-1 in favour of Japan. Second major upset was the Saudi Arabia versus Argentina match which ended 2-1 in favour of the Saudis. Morroco was the giant killer of the tournament. They beat Belgium, Portugal and Spain and ended up fourth best team in the world. Cameroon beat Brazil while Korea also beat Portugal with the last kick of the match