Nigeria ranked 14th youngest team in the World

Former African champions the Super Eagles of Nigeria have been ranked as one of the youngest in Africa and the World.

The Super Eagles were ranked as the 14th youngest national team in the World out of 126 analysed by the reliable CIES Football Observatory.

CIES Football made this public in their latest issue as monitored by your reliable and number one sports website, Pulse Sports Nigeria.

The ranking according to CIES was based on the average age of the 126 senior men’s national teams’ lineups used in the last 12 months.

With that considered, the Nigeria Super Eagles, who are in camp in Abuja ahead of an AFCON 2023 tie against Guinea-Bissau, came out 14th in the World out of the 126 teams, with an average age of 25.30 years.

This also saw the Nigeria Super Eagles finish as the fourth youngest team in Africa behind Burkina Faso, who have the youngest, Tanzania and Zambia, who have an average age of 25.06, 25.08 and 25.35 respectively.

A further breakdown of the numbers showed that players aged 22-25 enjoyed the highest percentage of minutes at 57.6%.

They are followed by those between the ages of 26-29, who enjoyed 34.3% of Super Eagles' minutes in the last 12 months.

On the flip side, the Super Eagles seem to have moved away from older players, with players aged 30 and above only seeing 2.4%.

It was also a low percentage for players who are 21 and under, with just 5.6% of game time given to them by Nigeria Super Eagles in the last year.

North African teams dominate this category led by Mohamed Salah’s record AFCON winners, the Pharaohs of Egypt.

The Pharaohs are followed by Algeria, West African duo Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, with Tunisia making up the top five oldest teams in Africa.

In terms of their average ages, Egypt has an average age of 28.4 years, Algeria (28.18), Cote d’Ivoire (27.98), Senegal (27.88) and Tunisia (27.64).