The Captain of the Super Eagles of Nigeria, John Mikel Obi, has slammed the decision of Croatia to leave out the country’s big names from the final Group D clash against Iceland at the ongoing World Cup.

Croatia have already booked their place in the latter stages of the competition , and as such manager Zlatko Dalic has vowed to leave out some of his star players in a bid to conserve their fitness .

Mikel , though , does not understand the reasoning behind Dalic’ s decision and feels it is unfair on the rest of the teams in the group.

“ I don’t think it’s the best thing to do , ” he told Goal.com. “This is a massive tournament – you can ’ t rest people and give others a chance of qualification.

“ They should be professional and play their best team. This is such a big stage that you can ’ t rest players just to help other teams to qualify . ”

Nigeria have faced Argentina four times in their previous five World Cup appearances, losing on all four occasions , but the form of the South American outfit have raised hopes that the Super Eagles can end that run .