World Cup warm up: Iceland to remain steadfast at Nigeria’s expense
Iceland’s first ever World Cup appearance helped return an impressive point in a 1-1 draw with Argentina. They’ll look to go one better when the take on Nigeria on Friday and put their first ever win on the board in the competition and, despite the absence of Johann Berg Gudmundsson, you’d back them to do so.
Nigeria have the personnel to trouble any opponent, including the likes of Victor Moses, Alex Iwobi and Odion Ighalo, but looked poor in their 2-0 defeat to Croatia last weekend. While the match in itself was little more than a damp squib, the Super Eagles were toothless over the 90 minutes. 14 shots yielded just two on target, the same as Croatia, but their European counterparts found their knack for grinding out the chances that mattered.
And so onto Iceland and it’s a match that is unlikely to set the world alight. Iceland’s gameplan is one built on staunch defending and remaining compact to frustrate opponents. While it’s not pretty, it’s certainly effective, and they’ll look to utilise a similar approach on Friday. They held Argentina to a 1-1 draw and while they saw just 22% of the ball, and had just eight shots on goal, they play to their strengths going forward, which is to utilise the height of Alfred Finnbogason.
He scored Iceland’s crucial goal against Argentina and his height is a huge boost for Iceland, with those in support looking to use his ability to hold off defenders to bring others into play. It’s a fine way of winning his side set-pieces in dangerous positions too, which allows for Iceland to maximise a statistically calculated WhoScored.com strength of ‘headed attempts’. A strength of 'defensive contribution' will also play a vital role against Nigeria, with the forward key at both ends of the pitch and is one of the reasons why Iceland's system works so well.
Given the success of the setup against Argentina, Iceland look set to use the compact approach once more against Nigeria. This will only increase their chances of overcoming the Super Eagles and securing a last-16 spot on their World Cup debut.
Writer predictions:
Martin Laurence - Nigeria 1-1 Iceland
Ben McAleer - Nigeria 0-1 Iceland
Josh Wright - Nigeria 0-1 Iceland
