Nigeria’s Alex Iwobi shifts focus to 2019 Nations Cup

Nigeria and Arsenal striker Alex Iwobi believes the Super Eagles will learn from their disappointing 2018 FIFA World Cup showing.

Nigeria failed to reach the knockout stages in Russia as they lost to Argentina and Croatia before beating Iceland 2-0.

However, the 22-year-old reckons the young Super Eagles squad can learn from its 2018 World Cup participation and build for the future.

Up next up for Gernot Rohr’s troops is a 2019 CAF Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Seychelles in September.

“The squad is young and we picked important lessons that will hopefully help us going forward,” he said to the BBC.

“Attention will soon shift to the Nations Cup and we must make our World Cup lessons count.

“We had a lot of hopes and believe that we could do well. We are very proud of ourselves and are going to take the positives of course.

“We are just unfortunate about the last minute goal that came against Argentina led to a defeat that knocked us out of the group. We are taking positives but we are very happy with what we did.”

The West African giants have not qualified for the AFCON tournament since winning the title in 2013.

They started their 2019 campaign with a disappointing 2-0 loss at home to South Africa in June last year.