Nigeria – Iceland

It’s time for another match from Group D of the FIFA World Cup in Russia. Against each other in Volgograd we are going to see the teams of Nigeria and Iceland. These are our vip soccer predictions today for this clash.

It was an unsuccessful start of the World Cup for Nigeria. The Super Eagles fought as much as they could, but they suffered a 0-2 defeat against one of the strongest teams in the group – Croatia. We can’t blame the African team for not trying, but certainly the Croatian team was just too classy for them to handle.

Nothing is over just yet for Nigeria, of course. The Super Eagles still have two games to play in Group D, so their hopes of reaching the 1/8-finals of the World Cup are not dead. But they certainly have to start winning points, because this is the only way they could qualify for the next stage of tournament.

Given the fact that his team lost its first match in Russia, it won’t be surprising if the German coach of Nigeria Gernot Rohr makes some changes in the starting eleven. Against Croatia he took the decision to leave the vice-captain Ogenyi Onazi on the bench, despite of the experience he have. Maybe you don’t know, but Nigeria have the youngest team at this World Cup. This is why players with Onazi’s experience are very important for the rest of the team. There are many young boys here, who are not used to playing on such a high level.

The decision of Rohr to leave Onazi out of the starting eleven did not lead to anything good for the Super Eagles, so we may see some changes in the way the German tactician approaches the next game. Or he could just stick to his plan from the first match and just keep his starting eleven.

The statistics are telling us that in some moments Nigeria are performing pretty good against competition from Europe. Actually, all of their five wins at the World Cup so far are recorded against teams from Europe. But in same time the Super Eagles have won just one of their last 13 matches at the World Cup, which is telling us that they have lost their momentum. At this moment Nigeria are in a run of three consecutive losses in the competition. And they know that if they record number four, it would mean that they are out of the World Cup.

Against Argentina Iceland played their first game ever at the World Cup. We can say that they did pretty good and fought for a 1-1 draw against the Albiceleste. This point could turn to be very important for the VIkings, especially after Croatia won against Argentina and made it easier for the other two teams to fight for a qualification. If Iceland manage to win against Nigeria, this would be a massive, really massive step towards the knockout phase of the tournament.

These are our vip soccer predictions today for the World Cup game between Nigeria and Iceland. We can say that both teams are in a pretty similar position at the moment – they have a similar amount of points (0 for Nigeria and 1 for Iceland) and they really need to record their first win at the World Cup. For both of them a loss would mean that their dream of reaching the knockout phase becomes much more complicated. We expect a very competitive game between two strong teams, who know how to play physical football at its best.