Super Eagles skipper, Mikel Obi, has vowed to shame critics as the World Cup gets underway on Thursday.
Nigeria are the lowest ranked team in Group D, falling behind Argentina, Croatia and Iceland.
The South Americans are fifth, while Croatia, the Eagles’ first opponent are 20th.
World Cup debutants Iceland are 22nd, 26 places better than the Nigerians.
Mikel, however, is glad his country bear the underdog tag.
“We like where we’ve been placed. We don’t want to be one of the favourites,” Mikel told Al Jazeera in a video interview on Tuesday.
“I think this will give the team enough motivation to prove critics wrong that we can actually do better than they actually feel.”
