Underrate Nigeria at your peril, Oghenekaro Etebo warns teams

Nigeria’s Super Eagles is the least rated among the teams in the country’s Group D of the Russia 2018 World Cup, but star midfielder, Oghenekaro Etebo says the classification is deceitful.

The midfielder, who recently joined Spain’s Las Palmas from the Portuguese league, thinks Nigeria is among the dark horses in the competition, which is less than five months away.

In an interview transcribed to English by the La Liga Lagos office, Etebo admits that making the Super Eagles’ World Cup squad has become a huge challenge, adding that at the end the battle for shirts would make the team stronger.

“The World Cup is very important, not only for me as a player, but for all Nigerians. I have said before that we should not just go there to mess ourselves up.

Nigeria has a great team, nobody thought we would qualify, but let us see how it goes. We have a tough group, apart from Argentina, Croatia and Iceland are tough opponents.

“The World Cup is five months from now, hopefully with hard work and support of the fans to boost our morale, we want to make sure we come out in flying colours in Russia as a nation,” he said.

Etebo reaffirmed his optimism in the ability of the Super Eagles to not only come out of the group, but also advance to the business end of the competition.

He described his move to Las Palmas as the best for his career, saying, “Spain is the best league in the whole world, with much potential, high visibility, high intensity. It is a great move for me I must say.”

The former Warri Wolves star, who was rated man of the match in Las Palmas victory over Malaga at the weekend, says he will take every game as it comes and see at the end of the season how far the team would go.

“The important thing is that we won the game, the points are most important. 

“Beating the drop will not be easy, but let’s see how it goes.