The team, who missed the last three World Cups due to a lack of finances, took to crowd-funding earlier this month to help them to travel to compete in this year's tournament.

Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president, Amaju Pinnick, the Super Eagles squad as well as the country's former vice-president Atiku Abubakar made significant financial contributions to get the squad to the city of San Juan de Los Lagos.

"It's a dream come true for these players to be at the World Cup after over a decade of training, dreaming and hoping," co-ordinator of fund-raising, Fred Edoreh, told BBC Sport.

"We thank the NFF president, the Super Eagles, former vice-president Atiku and the general public for their incredible support."

It has been a tough journey for the team as their bus was involved in an accident en route to the capital Abuja for a visa appointment at the Mexican Embassy two weeks ago.

Nigeria captain John Mikel Obi, who had pledged financial and moral support to the cash-strapped team, provided two flight tickets with the squad still awaiting kits, as promised from his representatives.

"The first batch of three players and coach have now been joined by the seven players who left Nigeria this weekend," said Edoreh.

"We got two tickets from Mikel Obi, but one was unusable because the player needed a transit visa hence we had to buy another expensive ticket to enable that player join the last batch.

"The promised kits are not in Mexico as yet, but luckily the players have the original kits provided by a local firm (Haggai) for their matches.

"It's been a long journey for the team and they thank everyone who made it possible to get to Mexico."

The Special Eagles will face Russia on Monday and El Salvador on Tuesday in other group matches.

Ghana, Kenya, Liberia and Angola are the continent's other representatives in Mexico.

Angola, Kenya and Ghana represented Africa at the 2014 World Cup in Culiacán, Mexico.

The Angolans finished as runners-up after losing 3-1 to Russia in the final.