Ten-player England scrape through as Nigeria pay World Cup penalty
Nigeria had the better of the chances, but the European Champions held out for a 0-0 draw after 120 minutes and prevailed 4-2 in the shootout in front of almost 50,000 spectators in Brisbane.
Playmaker Lauren James, the two-goal hero in the 6-1 win against China, received a red card for violent conduct after a needless stamp on Michelle Alozie on 87 minutes.
She will be suspended when the Lionesses face Colombia or Jamaica on Saturday for a place in the semi-finals as they aim to add the World Cup to their European crown.
Nigeria manager Randy Waldrum said his side had shown their inexperience after James went off.
"We created more chances against 11 players than we did against 10," Waldrum said.
"It goes down to experience, I don't think our players handled it very well.
"But credit to England, they were very well organised and prepared for it."
England got off to a terrible start in the penalty shootout when Georgia Stanway fired wide, but Desire Oparanozie could not take advantage and missed in identical fashion.
Beth England made no mistake, but Alozie ballooned her effort high over the bar to give England an advantage they never surrendered, sealing victory when Chloe Kelly -- who scored the winner in the final of the European Championship a year ago -- calmly converted.
England coach Sarina Wiegman said her team had practised and were prepared for the shootout.
"We have trained for penalties, we had a plan worked out," she said.
"But at the end it's the players who make the decisions as to who wants to take the penalties.
"We know how to do it, and we have the experience."
Resilient England
Wiegman said the team had shown resilience against an outstanding Nigeria, especially after going a player down.
"The first thing is we really stuck together as a team," she said.
"How we did that, and how the team just kept going, I'm so proud of them."
The Lionesses were expected to win comfortably against the world's 40th ranked team.
The Nigerians, however, have shown in this World Cup that they have the game to challenge anybody.
They stunned hosts Australia in the group stage, taking advantage of their speed in the transition to score a 3-2 win.
And they employed the same tactics against England, whose back-three were regularly exposed.
"They're very organised, very transitional, very physical and that's exactly what we saw," said Wiegman of Nigeria.
"But we made it through and I’m really happy."
Waldrum was proud of his side.
"To come in here and play the way they did tonight, I thought we were every bit as good (as England)," he said.
"We had every opportunity to get the result and unfortunately we didn't get it done.
"Obviously we didn't execute on our penalties and when it gets to that point, it's anyone's game.
"We had the best chances, we hit the crossbar twice in regulation play. We were a bit unlucky not to get something out of it."
England started the match strongly and had more possession but it was the Nigerians who looked the most dangerous.
England-born Ashleigh Plumptre had two golden chances to open the scoring, the first coming in the 16th minute when a strike from outside the box crashed into the crossbar.
A minute later she forced a fine diving save from England goalkeeper Mary Earps.
The second half followed the same pattern, but England had a golden chance to seal the match with 15 minutes left only for Chiamaka Nnadozie to pull off a fine save from Rachel Daly's powerful header.