Victory at the Parc Des Princes would take the Olympic champions through to the second round for the second successive finals and heavy losses to the Netherlands and Yugoslavia in pre-cup friendlies are now just a distant memory.

Defeat is the last thing on the Nigerians' minds. "We don't have that word in our dictionary," says veteran goalkeeper Peter Rufui ahead of the Group D match.

Bulgaria lost 3-0 to Nigeria in 1994 before staging an amazing recovery to reach the semi-finals. Revenge in the stadium that witnessed one of their greatest triumphs, the victory over France to qualify for the 1994 finals, would be sweet.

"I think they will be more determined this time round," said Rufai, who was in goal in Dallas. "In 1994 we caught them napping but they'll be looking for revenge now."

All three goalscorers from that Dallas match are still in theNigerian squad and one of them, striker Daniel Amokachi, said Nigeria wanted to score a few more this time.

Captain Uche Okechukwu injected a note of caution. "We haven't qualified yet. We have two games to play and we must focus," he said. "The game in 1994 was a long time ago, its a different team and a different situation."

Probable Teams

Nigeria: 1-Peter Rufai; 2-Mobi Oparaku, 6-Taribo West, 5-Uche Okechukwu (captain), 3-Celestine Babayaro, 20-Victor Ikpeba, 15-Sunday Oliseh, 11-Garba Lawal, 10-Jay-Jay Okocha, 8-Mutiu Adepoju, 7-Finidi George.

Bulgaria: 1-Zdravko Zdravkov; 3-Trifon Ivanov, 2-Radostin Kishishev, 4-Ivailo Petkov, 6-Zlatko Yankov, 10-Krassimir Balakov, 14-Marian Hristov, 5-Ivailo Yordanov, 7-Emil Kostadinov, 9-Lyuboslav Penev, 8-Hristo Stoichkov.

Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.