Nigeria will take delight in ending potentially Lionel Messi\u2019s last FIFA World Cup for Argentina despite their love and admiration for the five-time world player of the year, promised Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr.<\/p>\n
Victory for the Africans in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday will send Argentina home in disgrace after failing to win a game in Russia and send Nigeria into the last 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love this great player, Messi, everybody loves him,\u201d said Rohr on Monday. \u201cThe question is not if it is the last World Cup for him or not, the question is for us to be qualified.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not here to watch him playing. We are here to make a result, we are professionals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here to defend the colours of Nigeria and we know in football there is no mercy, no pity, everybody wants to win and we cannot make any gifts even if we like very much this player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messi carried Argentina through a troubled qualifying campaign but has so far failed to fire in Russia, missing a penalty in a 1-1 draw with Iceland before Croatia thrashed the two-time world champions 3-0.<\/p>\n
Nigerian defender Brian Idowu admitted he would love Messi\u2019s shirt as a momento, but also insisted he wants to send Argentina packing.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur main goal is that it will be Messi\u2019s last World Cup game, as much as footballers we love watching him play,\u201d said Idowu, who was born in Saint Petersburg and still plays his club football in Russia for Amkar Perm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love of course to swap jerseys with him but I would love to swap jerseys with many players in the Argentinean side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have many very good players and I watch them all play on TV, so it is not just Messi.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nigeria moved into second place in Group D behind already qualified Croatia by beating Iceland 2-0 thanks to an Ahmed Musa double.<\/p>\n
However, that victory came at a cost as captain John Obi Mikel suffered a fracture in his left hand that means he will be forced to wear a cast if he is to face Argentina.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe captain has a fracture of the third metacarpal of the left hand. It\u2019s not so big fracture, it\u2019s a little one, but he has to play with a cast,\u201d added Rohr.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to ask to the referee to accept, but it is hard plastic so I think it is ok. (He has) not so many pains and he will be ready I think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria will take delight in ending potentially Lionel Messi\u2019s last FIFA World Cup for Argentina despite their love and admiration for the five-time world player of the year, promised Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr. Victory for the Africans in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday will send Argentina home in disgrace after failing to win a game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35293,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35291\/revisions\/35293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}