Senegal emulate Nigeria and also storm Russia in African native attire as World Cup starts today

SENEGAL'S national football team the Lions of Teranga have continued the African tradition started by the Super Eagles by also arriving for the 2018 World Cup in Russia donning native attires.

One of the five African representatives at the tournament, Senegal are in Group H alongside Poland, Japan and Colombia. Senegal, who kick off their campaign on Tuesday June 19 against Poland at the Spartak Stadium in Moscow, will be based in Kaluga, 110 miles from Russian capital Moscow and will train at the Sputnik sports ground.

Yesterday, the Lions of Teranga landed in Russia with star players Sadio Mane, Idrissa Gueye and captain Cheikhou Kouyaté all smiles as they arrived in their all blue native attires. Senegal are one of the African sides tipped to scale through the group stages and emulate the record of their previous squad that got to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan.

After their opening game against Poland, the Lions of Teranga will face Japan in Yekaterinburg on Sunday, June 24 and Colombia on Thursday, June 28. This is only Senegal's second World Cup appearance but the Lions of Teranga remain only one of three African nations to have ever got to the quarter finals of the tournament alongside Cameroon and Ghana.

Later on today, the World Cup kicks off with hosts Russia facing Saudi Arabia at the Luzhniki Stadium Moscow at 4pm GMT. Tomorrow there will be three matches including Egypt playing Uruguay, Morocco facing Iran and Spain squaring up against Portugal.

Nigeria's Super Eagles will get their campaign going on Saturday when they face Croatia at the Kaliningrad Stadium. Drawn in Group D, the Eagles will then face Iceland at the Volgograd Arena on June 22 and end their group matches with a game against Argentina on June 26 at the Saint Petersburg Stadium.