Croatia penalty affected my players–Rohr

Coach of the Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr has admitted that it was impossible for his boys to get back into the game after Croatia scored its winning goal, even though he agreed they deserved to win the match.

Nigeria fell 2-0 to Croatia on Saturday night  at the on-going FIFA World Cup played at the Kaliningrad Arena in Russia.

An own goal by Oghenekaro Etebo and a penalty converted by Luka Modric confined the Eagles to the bottom of the group with no point which was not the kind of result the Nigeria side were expecting.

But Rohr remains optimistic that the team will improve before their next game against Iceland who drew 1-1 with Argentina in the opening match of group D at the Spartak Stadium in Moscow played on Saturday.

“We’re really disappointed we lost this game. Croatia were the better team. We could have come back into it in the second half after we started very well before the penalty against us. We’re a young team, we’re learning and I hope in the next game against Iceland we will do much better”, the coach said.

Nigeria need a win in their second match to keep their hopes of qualifying for the round of 16.