Nigeria WNT forward, Desire Oparanozie has expressed confidence in the team’s ability to go toe to toe with the big names in their FIFA Women’s World Cup group, and go far in the tournament

The Nigerian team are drawn in the same group as co-host Australia, Olympic champions Canada and The Republic of Ireland in group A.

In the opening game, Nigeria will face Canada on July 21; a day after the World Cup gets underway.

In anticipation of the upcoming football showpiece, Oparanozie expressed optimism about the team’s chances of progressing from the first round.

“Canada are a top team and the good thing is we have played them a couple of times and we know them very well,” she told SuperSports.

“All the time that we have played against them we’ve had something positive to go home with, irrespective of the result.

” Having them in our group is not bad, it just means we are going to put in more work and devise a means to come out on top this time because the last time we were in the same group with them at a World Cup they came out on top.

“This time we will have to change that, and we have the information needed to beat them and we are playing them in our first game which is very vital for us if we are going to get to the next round.”