Super Eagles midfielder and captain, John Mikel Obi says he's optimistic the team will display a good performance at the World Cup in Russia.
The former Chelsea star will be featuring in his second World Cup after playing at the 2014 Mundial, where the team crashed out in the last 16 to France 2-0.
However, despite Nigeria's poor showing in their warm-up games against Czech, England, Serbia which has thrown so much fear on the team possibly crashing out in the group stages, Mikel insisted that the Super Eagles would surprise most opponents in Russia.
“We like where we’ve been placed. We don’t want to be one of the favourites,” Mikel told Al Jazeera.
“I think this will give the team enough motivation to prove critics wrong that we can actually do better than they actually feel.”
