Nigeria Faces Croatia’s ‘Intimidating’ Squad

Super Eagles of Nigeria

Lagos, Nigeria, June 15, 2018// – Coach Gernot Rohr would, on Saturday, be leading his wards to face Croatia in Nigeria’s curtain raiser at the 2018 World Cup which started on Thursday. To say that the Super Eagles’ preparatory road to the World Cup could not inspire confidence is to emphasis the obvious.

With two wins, three defeats and one draw, Nigeria cannot be said to have a preparation that could inspire hope among Nigerians going into Saturday’s must-not-lose match against Croatia.

After defeating Argentina in their first tune up match, following their qualification for the quadrennial event, Nigeria followed that up with a 1-0 win over Poland, before subsequent losses to Serbia, England and Czech Republic, as well as a draw against DR Congo concluded their rather uninspiring preparations.

But Coach Rohr is not a man to lose faith in what he believes in and he demonstrated that when he reacted to Nigeria’s 0-1 defeat to Czech Republic in their last friendly match played recently.

“I don’t worry about friendly results. We are not ready now for the World Cup but we will be ready in 10 days (when Nigeria will play Croatia),” Rohr said after the game.

Croatia played four friendly matches after they qualified for the World Cup with two losses and two wins.The country lost 0-2 to Peru and followed that up with a 1-0 win over Mexico. Then Brazil defeated Croatia 2-0 before the team came from behind to beat Senegal 2-1 in the country’s final preparatory game.

Reflecting on Rohr’s optimism, one can easily remember Nigeria’s bumpy preparations before their first match against Spain in the 1998 edition of the World Cup in France. Before flying out to France, the Super Eagles could only manage a single draw which was 2-2 affair with Jamaica in Kingston.

Nigeria subsequently lost 0-1 to Germany, 0-3 to Yugoslavia while a humiliating 1-5 loss to the Netherlands ended what was rather a forgettable preparation for that year’s Mundial. But in Nigeria’s opening match against Spain, which before then hadn’t lost a match in almost 15 fixtures, the Super Eagles defeated the European giants 3-2.

On paper, Croatia possesses intimidating players especially in the midfield. No coach will be comfortable coming against stars such as Real Madrid’s duo of Luka Modrić and Mateo Kovačić, as well as FC Barcelona’s Ivan Rakitić, Inter Milan’s Ivan Perišić and Napoli’s Marko Rog.

As a major weakness, Croatian defence always loses concentration when under serious attack and this is where the likes of Alex Iwobi, Victor Moses and Odion Ighalo must exploit to Nigeria’s advantage. Iwobi and Kelechi Iheanacho will be expected to catch the Croatian backline unawares as they have always done in previous encounters.

Independent.ng 

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