Don't You Dare Underrate Super Eagles of Nigeria, The Most Unpredictable Team in the World

Obviously, the world football pundits are not looking the way of Nigeria qualifying in the rather difficult Group D Russia 2018 Fifa World Cup . From the most recent February  Fifa Ranking , Nigeria sit far away 52nd place as against Argentina 5th, Croatia 13th and moving upward is Iceland 18th. By this ranking, you could easily conclude that Super Eagles of Nigeria will be the whipping boys of the group.

Fifa.com post stated five reasons they think Iceland can shock the world in Russia this summer; They are serial giant-killers and are saying bring on Argentina! ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall’ seems to be the motto of the Iceland national team that, over the past couple of years, beaten the likes of Croatia, the Netherlands, Turkey, Ukraine, Greece and, most famously of all, England. They can better EURO heroics where they drew with Portugal, the eventual winners of Euro 2016.

Iceland have a star No10 of their own. Lionel Messi might be Group D’s headline act, but Iceland also have an influential and highly effective No10 in the shape of Gylfi Sigurdsson. Above all Their team spirit is second-to-none and they have a special bond with their supporters.

Nobody is in doubt of how ruthless the Real Madrid Moradic led Croatia national team can be in a good day. Near perfection in efficiency and in excellent display of what modern football should look like. If the opposition shows any form of weakness, the Croatian team can capitalize on that to score as much as ten goals without soft pedalling at all.

The Croatian team can pile up pressure on the opposition for the whole ninety minutes of play without relenting...with free flowing accurate passes and ball position and incredible pace at moving forward like beehives. They have the capability to break down any defensive formation and scoring many goals.

However, most pundits are expects Argentina to shake off their World Cup qualification difficulty and bounds back to top group D, while Iceland or Croatia pick the second spot. Of course, Argentine were the runners up in Brazil 2014 world cup. Apart from having out of this planet star, Lionel Messi, they have the largest assembly of individual five star players: Sergio Aguero, Dybala, Hugain, Di Maria, Mascharano, just name them.

Looking at individual stars in the teams, Super Eagles also fall short of any world class star. Most of the key players are bench warmers in their clubs and others playing in the lower leagues in China, Turkey, Greece...

And pundits quickly wave aside the result of the International friendly match against Argentina, where the Nigerian side came from a 0 - 2 down in the first half, to beat Argentina 4 - 2. But that is the unpredictable nature of a typical Nigerian side. Nobody can predict what the team is capable of doing next or when they will come to the party. But if they do, there's no mountain so high that they cannot bring down.

Be reminded what happened in Altanta 96 Olympic games, when a rather unknown Nigeria team came from 1 - 3 down to defeat a star studded Brazilian Olympic team 4 - 3. The team also went on to beat Argentina 2 - 1 in the finals of the men football event.

The team that highly believe in the god of soccer phantom, praying at any slightest interval, with an unrelenting supporters band, drumming and singing praises, in order to receive favorable result from the phantom god, do have their miracles sometimes. Nigeria has records of dramatic comebacks more than any team in world football. the Damn Miracle, the CHAN Miracle... Watch out in Russia!

Argentina is a very familiar foe of Nigeria, having played against the Weat African side 6 times in the world cup...and they can atest to the fact the Super Eagles are a very difficult team to break. They only managed to nick a win in the group stage of 2014 Fifa world cup in Brazil. Nigeria also came back from a 0 - 2 down to equalize 2 - 2...and it took only a late strike by Hugain to edge out Nigeria in that game.

One thing going for Nigeria is what most pundits see as weakness, their unknown quality and difficult to analyize style of football...a kind of amoabatic play with no clear cut pattern. It's usually difficult for European teams, which usually play a kind of 'text book football,' to find a smooth flow in their games against this West African opposition.

Super Eagles of Nigeria will present the youngest team, with players averaging 23years old. They also have the fastest attacking duos Victor Moses, Moses Simon, Ahmed Musa, Odion Ighalo...opposition must be ready to run as fast as Usain Bolt in other to catch up with these speed racers. To fully attack this Nigerian team is a danger trap for the counter-attack with players capable of covering 100 metres in less than 10 seconds, with the ball on their strips.

Forget Fifa rankings, forget popular stars and the rising giant killers, if Nigerian national team come to the party, then you may be shocked, how Super Eagles will stun Group D opponents and the rest of the world.