Captain of the Super Eagles of Nigeria, Mikel John Obi has said the Eagles’ group at the 2018 FIFA World Cup is the toughest.
Obi is one of only four members of the current Eagles’ squad that featured at the last finals in Brazil four years ago.
Speaking on Thursday, he said: “It is the dream of every footballer to play at the FIFA World Cup and we have to live that dream on Saturday. Croatia is a very good team with a lot of top class players and we have to be at our very best against them.
“This group is probably the toughest in the tournament; everyone is calling it the ‘group of death’.
“That is the motivation. We have given ourselves the target of coming out of this group just like we did in the African qualifying group that everyone gave the same tag.
“We worked hard at both the camp in Austria and since we got to the team base camp in Essentuki. Our Football Federation also did well to get us to prepare in very good places devoid of distraction and now, it is our responsibility to do the nation proud by starting well against Croatia.”
Saturday will mark Nigeria’s sixth appearance at the FIFA World Cup finals, in seven tournaments since making her debut at the 1994 finals in the USA. In previous outings, the Eagles had made it to the Round of 16 on three occasions – the only African team to have gone that far that many times. This was in 1994, 1998 and 2014. The team failed to emerge from the group stage in 2002 and 2010.
The only time Nigeria has missed football’s biggest showpiece in the last quarter –century was in 2006, when a head-to-head rule knocked out the Eagles despite finishing on equal points and superior goals to Angola – which was enough to guarantee qualification in normal situations.
