Argentina skipper Lionel Messi has rated the Super Eagles highly, especially the team’s attack and praised his team for overcoming the Nigerian hurdle, africanfootball.com reports.

Messi, who scored twice in the game against the African champions, said Argentina must step up their performance as the competition enters its tougher phase.

“I think we have improved from the last two games. We played against a team that was going forward with good players,” Messi said.

“We saw a good Argentina, despite the two Nigerian goals. Now we want more, we have to keep improving.

“We said before: our strikers had to move a little bit more because we weren’t finding spaces. We had that against Nigeria and we have to work, so the next game we won’t concede goals.”

The Barcelona forward also revealed that he was en¬joying the atmosphere surrounding the tournament, as he bids to lead Argentina to their first World Cup trophy since 1986.

“It’s great to see so many people here. We were expecting it and in the previous games it was like that,” he continued.

“It’s beautiful what we’re living through these days, I hope we can keep giving them joy.

“It’s a strange World Cup, with results we weren’t expecting to see.”