Nigeria won their first two games while Paraguay drew their first two games 0–0, which meant that Nigeria were certain of qualifying in first place with a game to spare.
In their final game, Spain got their only victory after scoring six against Bulgaria, but were still eliminated in third place after Paraguay beat Nigeria.
Thus, Spain were the only top seed not to advance to the second round, while all others topped their respective groups.
On the other hand, Bulgaria could not repeat their surprise performance from the previous tournament, finishing last in the group with a single point.
Assistant referees: Achmat Salie (South Africa) Hussain Ghadanfari (Kuwait) Fourth official: Nikolai Levnikov (Russia) Assistant referees: Luis Torres Zúñiga (Costa Rica) Yuri Dupanov (Belarus) Fourth official: Ian McLeod (South Africa) Assistant referees: Jorge Díaz Gálvez (Chile) Arnaldo Pinto (Brazil) Fourth official: Marcio Rezende (Brazil) Assistant referees: Aristidis Chris Soldatos (South Africa) Owen Powell (Jamaica) Fourth official: Esse Baharmast (United States) Assistant referees: Mohamed Al Musawi (Oman) Mikael Nilsson (Sweden) Fourth official: Masayoshi Okada (Japan) Assistant referees: Nicolae Grigorescu (Romania) Claudio Rossi (Argentina) Fourth official: Nikolai Levnikov (Russia)