On Tuesday night, Argentinan football will have one of its biggest moments in history when Lionel Messi & Co will try to climb out from a very dark place they have put themselves following a poor start to FIFA World Cup 2018. Argentina have to beat Nigeria and score a lot in the hopes that Croatia will do them a favour in the other Group D matchup against Iceland. It's a straightforward task on paper, but things might not end up being as easy as Argentina's previous meetings with the Super Eagles have shown.

The two have met eight times before with Argentina holding a dominant 5W-1D-2L record, but it's never been a breeze for La Albiceleste and actually, the most recent meeting resulted in a Nigeria win. Gernot Rohr's team erased a two-goal deficit on their way to a 4-2 win last November in Krasnodar.

Argentina and Nigeria have also faced each other many times at the FIFA World Cup. The most recent meeting took place at the last tournament, also in a final match of the group stage with a 3-2 Argentina win good enough for both to go through into the next round ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iran.

They have also been paired together in the same group in 2010, 2002 and 1994. Eight years ago, Gabriel Heinze opened the scoring early from a corner kick, but Argentina weren't good enough to get any more goals and ended up winning just 1-0.

It was almost like history repeating itself as the meeting in 2002 had also ended with a 1-0 win for Argentina. The only difference being that Juan Veron's corner was knocked into the back of the net by Gabriel Batistuta back then and it happened in the second half. Even after beating Nigeria, Argentina crashed out in the group stage that year, so could history be repeating itself again?

The 1994 meeting was another one-goal game, as Claudio Caniggia scored twice for Argentina to erase an early deficit in a 2-1 win.

Notice the pattern here? Argentina might win tonight, but history suggests that the meeting with Nigeria will be a close one and even the potential three points gained might not help them into the next round.