World Cup: Sagna is worried for France about Nigeria’s quality

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France defender Bacary Sagna has admitted worries over the threat Nigeria will pose against his team ahead of their FIFA World Cup second-round clash on Monday.

The Didier Deschamps’ men will for the first time be facing the African champions who finished as runners-up in Group F in the last-16 tie with Nigeria in Brasilia.

The French reached the knockout stages as winner of Group E after seeing off rivals Honduras and Switzerland 3-0 and 5-2 respectively and draw 0-0 with Equador.

Sagna, who is playing at his first ever World Cup tournament, outlined troubles that lies ahead of his French side when they confront the Stephen Keshi’s men.

“They are the best African team at the moment,” Sportal.co.nz quoted the Manchester City-bound full-back as saying.

“They have very good players. Some play in the biggest European clubs, especially in England. They will fight and they have a lot of qualities. But we want to concentrate on ourselves.

“As players, we aspire to go as far as possible, to win trophies. It would be a failure not to win the trophy. Initially, we wanted to qualify from the group. Now, we want to go step by step.

“There are 11 players who will start, but the 23 are important. The atmosphere is very important and we try to keep this dynamic,” the former Arsenal man concluded.