Nigerians and indeed West Africans were left heartbroken after the loss that moved Eagles to the bottom of D group standings.
An own goal from Oghenekaro Etebo and Luka Modric’s penalty condemned Gernot Rohr’s men to 2-0 defeat in their World Cup opener against Croatia on Saturday, June 16.
The result left them at the bottom of their group, with games against Iceland and Argentina both of whom are tied on one point after they played out a 1-1 draw still to come.
Although disappointed by the country’s poor performance at the Kaliningrad Stadium, Garba Lawal who represented Nigeria at the 1998 and 2002 World Cup tournaments has charged them to go all out for maximum points in their subsequent matches against Heimir Hallgrimsson’s side and La Albiceleste.
“The way forward is we have to do it the hard way, now we have to win two matches which is very difficult,” Lawal emphasized.
“I thought we were good but Saturday’s performance showed the kind of quality we have. Iwobi and Moses played out of position, including Mikel. Everything we did didn’t work well.”