Super Eagles Are The Youngest Team At The World Cup, Ahead Of England & Germany

Swiss-based independent study centre CIES Football Observatory has conducted a study to find out the youngest and oldest teams that have qualified for the 2018 World Cup.

And the study revealed that the Super Eagles of Nigeria fielded the youngest team during the qualifiers, with an average age of 24.9 years.

Leicester City current Young Player of the Year Wilfred Ndidi was the youngest player that represented Nigeria in the third round of the African World Cup qualifiers, aged 19 years, 9 months and 23 days when he stepped out onto the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium (Ndola) turf against Zambia on October 9, 2016.

World champions Germany have the second youngest team(25.7) and world champions at U17 and U20 level England took up third place (25.9).

Panama (29.4 years) and Iceland (29.0), as well as 2014 FIFA World Cup quarter-finalists Costa Rica (29.0) fielded the oldest players during the qualifiers.

The average height of players that represented Nigeria is 181.2cm, making them the 19th tallest team.

11.4 percent of Nigerian players were born abroad, the likes of Ola Aina, Carl Ikeme, William Troost-Ekong and Leon Balogun, and 91.4 percent of the players represent foreign clubs.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel