Fasten your seat belts for the quarterfinals

Jay-Jay Okocha is a legend of African and Nigerian football who played for the Super Eagles and the 1994 and 1998 World Cup finals. In the third of his exclusive interviews with The Citizen about the 2018 Fifa World Cup, he gives his views on Africa’s failures in Russia, on the quarterfinals, and on Neymar’s play-acting. On all of the African teams being knocked out in the group stages.

It is disappointing but I don’t think we (Africa) did enough to stay longer in the tournament. The only team that was really unlucky was Senegal (the Teranga Lions were knocked out because they had more yellow cards in their group than Japan). But the rules were there before. I feel a bit gutted, but we (Africa) didn’t do enough to progress. On Senegal complaining to Fifa about the fair play rule

There was no need for that. It wasn’t as if the rules were made after the game, they were made before the tournament, and it was clear for all the teams to see, so I think it doesn’t make sense to make that complaint. They have introduced a lot of new things in this World Cup, like VAR and the fair play rule, and it wasn’t as if they made it just for Japan and Senegal, it was there for all the teams. On Nigeria’s performance

I think looking back I would say I am pleased with the way they performed. I won’t fault their attitude … maybe they were short on experience, and maybe at the

Jay-Jay Okocha

end of the day the lack of leaders deprived them of going to the last16. But there are a lot of things to build on and these young players were given the exposure they need to become better players … I think they should be proud of what they did. On France and their African roots

They have a very good chance of going all the way, they have got really good players in their squad. They were really tested against Argentina and they stood up to the test so they look like a team to be reckoned with. I don’t know about them being Africans, most of them were born in France but it is always good to see a group of young, talented players that have grown together doing well. On Kylian Mbappe

He is an unbelievable talent, we all knew that before the tournament and we were anxious to see if he could stand his ground. I think he has shown the whole world that after this generation he might be the main man. On France v Uruguay

It is a good contest, for the neutral it should be a good match to watch because Uruguay are a very stingy team, they don’t give much away … and the shifts the two strikers (Suarez and Cavani) put in is also a plus for them. They are two strikers who score goals and work for the team. For me this is an open contest. On Brazil v Belgium

It might be the match of the tournament because both teams are well-equipped with superstars, but I think Brazil have looked a bit more like a team than the Belgians. On Neymar’s play-acting

We don’t like to see that. We like to see players stay on their feet and not try and con the referee. He has done it a bit too much, I know he is a targeted man, but he is a strong kid, he should stay on his feet a bit more. We don’t want to see him on the floor, we want to see him on his feet, doing his stuff.