A marathon Saturday of World Cup action climaxes with the fourth fixture of the day, as Nigeria take on Croatia in Kaliningrad. Kick-off in this Group D encounter is at 8pm.
Though the likes of Ivan Rakitic, Luka Modric, Mario Mandzukic and Victor Moses will be on show, there is only one place to start: Nigeria’s £4.0m-rated goalkeeper Francis Uzoho.
The budget custodian has been selected by 12% of those playing McDonald’s FIFA, having established himself both in the Nigerian team and as a fund-freeing Fantasy asset.
Wing-back Bryan Odowu, also priced up at £4.0m, offers the same appeal to Fantasy managers looking for a cheap fifth defender who is guaranteed game-time.
Though Nigeria qualified for the World Cup in style, scoring more goals along the way than any other African team who made it to Russia, their form in recent months will offer plenty of encouragement to Croatia: the Super Eagles have lost their last three friendlies against European opposition, scoring on only one occasion.
Though not as cheap as the aforementioned Nigerian assets, Dejan Lovren‘s modest £5.0m price tag has attracted the investment of 8% of McDonald’s FIFA managers.
Croatia’s backline kept six clean sheets in the UEFA qualification group stage (and another in the play-off win over Greece), conceding on just four occasions in their ten initial fixtures: only Spain and England had better defensive records.
No Croatia player assisted more goals in World Cup qualification than Luka Modric (£9.0m), who is the only other Croatia asset with an ownership greater than 2%. The Real Madrid star, selected by 5% of McDonald’s FIFA managers, is not part of a team that excels at set-play situations though: the Croats had fewer goal attempts from set pieces per match than any other European team during qualification (31 efforts in 12 matches).
