Akpoborie was surprisingly dropped from Nigeria's squad for 1998 FIFA World Cup by Bora Milutinović, in spite of the fact that he played in five of the six 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification matches and was the joint second top scorer in the 1997-98 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup tournament. He was also one of the two Nigerian footballers to play in a European Cup final that year, the other being Inter Milan defender Taribo West, who was red-carded in the 1998 UEFA Cup Final, less than a month to the World Cup in France.