Mainz 05's Leon Balogun says the objective of the Super Eagles is qualify for the last sixteen of the 2018 World Cup despite the presence of Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi and Argentina in their group.
The central defender, who was in contention to play for Nigeria at the 2014 World Cup until injury ruled him out, pointed out that Nigeria easily overcame Algeria, Cameroon and Zambia during the qualifiers.
''Who's Lionel Messi? Nigeria, Super Eagles deserve this chance, it could have been different teams playing against us in our group but it is Argentina again,'' Balogun told German Television DW.
''Without Messi, some people say we might have been scared. Nigeria is strong, we were the first team to qualify from Africa, so we proved our quality especially as a team.
''I hope that we can bring this on stage in Russia and I think we have chances of reaching the next round.''
Without mentioning names, Balogun revealed that Gernot Rohr has a secret weapon that will work for him at the World Cup.
''We will be a big surprise, we have some attackers, some quality in our offense that most of the teams might not be aware of, so I hope they are not getting to get a wake up call before.
''We are going to wake them up in the game but it's going to be too late for them,'' Balogun added.
German-born Leon Balogun played five matches during the 2018 World Cup qualifiers and captained the Super Eagles against Algeria in November 2017.
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