Iceland Coach: Super Eagles Massively Good Team; Have Players In EPL, La Liga, Serie A

Published: June 21, 2018

Iceland manager Heimir Hallgrímsson believes their World Cup match with Nigeria will be tough, and has highlighted the fact that their African opponents have several players plying their trades in the big five leagues in Europe.

Gernot Rohr can count on Wilfred Ndidi, Victor Moses, Ahmed Musa, Oghenekaro Etebo, Simeon Nwankwo, Kelechi Iheanacho, Alex Iwobi and goalkeeper Francis Uzoho for tomorrow's game in Volgograd.

''Their strengths? They are a physically strong team, they are quick, good athletes all of them, a big running capability. They play direct, they are a really good counter-attacking side,'' Hallgrímsson said at Thursday's press conference.

''I have to give credit to Rohr about their organization. If you have watched their games throughout last year, you can see their improvement in tactical awareness, so in my opinion they have so many things to make a football team proud.

''When you look at the individuals, they have six players in the English Premier League, they have players in La Liga, they have players in Serie A, so they have players playing of the highest quality day in, day out. This is a massively good team with a lot of individual strengths.''

The second match day of Group D starts this evening, with two-time world champions Argentina taking on Croatia at the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium.

Igho Kingsley