Tag: Ivory Coast

  • AFCON: Ivory Coast Pip DR Congo 1-0, To Face S. Eagles

    Sebastien Haller scored the winner as 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON, hosts Ivory Coast beat DR Congo to set up a final meeting with Nigeria.

    The only goal of a cagey contest in Abidjan came in the 65th minute when Haller’s volley bounced down into the ground and up over Leopards goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi.

    DR Congo did not look like getting a late equaliser, although Meschack Elia sent a volley wide of the left-hand upright and Simon Banza then fired well over in injury time.

    Ivory Coast had sacked Jean-Louis Gasset as boss before scraping through the group stage, and had needed late goals against both Senegal and Mali to progress to the last four.

    Interim boss Emerse Fae, will now try to guide the Elephants to a third continental title, with the hope of adding to their triumphs in 1992 and 2015, when they face three-time winners Nigeria in Abidjan on Sunday by 20:00 GMT.

    The first meeting between the two teams during the group stage of this tournament ended one nil in favour of the Super Eagles.

    The Super Eagles had reached the final earlier on Wednesday after beating South Africa 4-2 on penalties following a dramatic 1-1 draw in Bouake.

    BBC/Maxwell Oyekunle

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  • 2023 AFCON kicks off in Ivory Coast

    The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations kicks off Saturday with a tricky tie between Ivory Coast and Guniea-Bissau. The 34th edition of the tournament is considered one of the most wide-open in recent times, with several teams capable of lifting the title on February 11.

    The Super Eagles are in Group A alongside hosts, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau

    This group is straightforward on paper as Ivory Coast and Nigeria have better players than the other two nations, so, most would fancy both to easily progress to the knockout stages.

    The Elephants are hosting the event for the second time and are looking for their third continental title. They last won it in 2015 at the tail end of their Golden Generation. They have a young squad led by the experienced Max Gradel, who was part of the 2015 title-winning team. The likes of Sebastien Haller, Nicolas Pepe, Ibrahim Snagare, and Franck Kessie should make qualification easy for the hosts.

    Meanwhile, Nigeria have been accused many times for underachieving at the tournament. They have reigning African Player of the Year Victor Osimhen in their strike force, so they are expected to get through. They are making their 20th AFCON appearance and are eyeing a fourth continental title.

    Equatorial Guinea finished fourth in 2015, so they could be a problem for the two fancied nations. They have exciting players who play across Europe.

    Guinea-Bissau will be playing in their fourth AFCON tournament and they will face the hosts in the opening game, which is daunting. Their clash with Equatorial Guinea will be huge if they both lose to the West African giants.

    The tournament hosts are favourites to top Group A, while the Djurtus seek group-stage progress for the first time.

    The pressure is on Jean-Louis Gasset’s Elephants when they take to the field on Saturday as AFCON 2023 commences, keen to impose themselves against Guinea-Bissau.

    The West African side partook in qualifying despite being assured of a spot at the finals, finishing second after ending level with Zambia on 13 points, winning four of their six games (one loss).

    Ivory Coast have group-stage history on their side, having progressed from that phase in eight of the previous nine times they have played at the Cup of Nations, and they seek to boost their prospects of making it nine in 10 with a strong showing against Guinea-Bissau.

    Gasset’s troops wiped the floor with Sierra Leone in their tune-up game, claiming a 5-1 victory over the Leone Stars last weekend, as they impressed with their decisive execution in the final third.

    Carrying that form into Saturday’s AFCON opener with the expectant home support is anyone’s guess, but their goalscoring form at least gives the Elephants reason to be optimistic in the lead-up to facing Guinea-Bissau.

    Punch / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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  • AFCON Group: Morocco Likely Opponent of Nigeria, South Africa

    Nigeria, South Africa and Morocco could be placed in the same group when the Africa Cup of Nations draw is made in the Ivory Coast on Thursday.

    The six top seeds include Morocco, who created history at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar by becoming the first semi-finalists from Africa.

    Nigeria is among the second seeds while South Africa has had to settle for a place among the third seeds for the draw in Abidjan, the Ivorian economic capital.

    Add surprise 2021 Cup of Nations quarter-finalists Gambia from the fourth seeds and it would be a striking “group of death,” the term given to particularly tough sections.

    Nigeria, three-time winners of the premier African football competition, and former champions South Africa were unlucky not to be seeded higher.

    The Super Eagles lie sixth in the continental rankings and, ordinarily, would have been a top seed, avoiding Morocco, title-holders Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt in the group stage.

    But host countries not only automatically qualify for the two-year tournament, they are also always among the first seeds.

    To accommodate the ninth-ranked Ivory Coast, sixth-placed Nigeria had to give way and now share second-seed status with Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    South Africa had been ranked above DR Congo for some time but, in the rankings that decided the seedings, they were placed one place below the Congolese.

    It was an ironic change of positions as South Africa defeated DR Congo in a friendly match just a couple of days before the rankings were released.

    The other third seeds are Cape Verde, Guinea, Zambia, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritania while the fourth seeds include Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, Gambia and Tanzania.

    Shock 2012 champions thanks to a penalty shootout victory over Didier Drogba-inspired Ivory Coast, Zambia are back at the Cup of Nations after three straight failures to qualify.

    Zambia and Mozambique, whose last appearance was in 2010, are the only qualifiers who have not featured in at least one of the last two tournaments.

    Despite a poor Cup of Nations record, Morocco is set to be installed as favourites to win the January 13-February 11 competition.

    They have been champions just once in 33 editions topping a 1976 group in Ethiopia in one of only two editions where a mini-league determined the champions.

    In the last Cup of Nations, hosted by Cameroon in 2022, Morocco was eliminated by Egypt in the quarter-finals.

    Morocco coach, Walid Regragui, mastermind of the stunning World Cup campaign after taking charge just a few months earlier, says he will quit if his team fails to at least reach the semi-finals.

    “We must be at least in the semi-finals of the CAN (Cup of Nations). If I do not go to the semi-finals, I will leave on my own,” he told the Moroccan media.

    “I told my players that we cannot be kings of the world before being kings of our continent. Everyone wants to beat Morocco after our results in Qatar.

    “This makes it more difficult for us to win, but it also motivates the players to improve and I welcome that.”

    All six top seeds plus Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, DR Congo, South Africa and Zambia have won the Cup of Nations. The other champions Ethiopia, Sudan and Congo Brazzaville did not qualify.

    Punch / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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  • AFCON: 2023 Finals Moved to 2024 over Weather Concerns

    The next Africa Cup of Nations will be played in Ivory Coast in 2024, and not 2023, Confederation of African Football (Caf) president Patrice Motsepe said on Sunday.

    The tournament was to be hosted in June-July 2023, which is the height of the rainy season in Ivory Coast.

    “We cannot take the risk,” the South African said in the Moroccan capital Rabat.

    With the World Cup in Qatar taking place in November and December this year, the decision has been taken to postpone the finals rather than bring them forward.

    It means the Nations Cup will be held in January and February for the second time in a row, after this year’s tournament in Cameroon.

    In 2017, Caf announced that it would move the finals from their traditional January-February slot to June-July in a bid to avoid repeated disputes with European clubs forced to release players in the middle of the season.

    “January is not the ideal time because of the European clubs, but it is the only choice we have,” Motsepe added.

    Under former Caf president Issa Hayatou, who was overthrown in 2017, African football’s ruling body refused to countenance any possible change of date for the months the continent’s flagship sports event is hosted.

    Yet just four months after taking charge, Hayatou’s successor – Ahmad of Madagascar – turned this policy on its head following consultation with the continent’s officials.

    Caf Secretary-General Veron Mosengo-Omba said there are no plans to permanently move the finals back to January-February given the contrasting weather patterns across the continent at different times of the year.

    When asked why it took Caf so long to make a decision on this matter, given that June and July have been the rainy seasons in Ivory Coast for many years, Motsepe failed to directly address the question – saying the choice had been made ‘out of courtesy’ with Ivorian organisers.

    Both Motsepe and Mosengo-Omba were speaking in Morocco, which is hosting the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.

    African Super League

    On the agenda since Fifa President Gianni Infantino hinted at its possibility in 2019, the African Super League will get underway in August 2023.

    The tournament will feature 24 teams and carry total prize money of $100m, said Motsepe, adding that just over $10m will go to the winner.

    Citing ‘financial challenges’ in Caf which he inherited from Ahmad, whom he replaced last year, Motsepe said that businesses are interested in sponsoring the event.

    “The key issue for us is the abnormal interest we’ve been exposed to from some of the biggest and most prominent investors and sponsors,” he said.

    Caf also said that the African Champions League, which is open to all countries in Africa, will continue alongside the new African Super League, where the top 24 teams will be determined according to their Fifa ranking.

    Following huge criticism by beaten finalists Al Ahly following the decision to stage this year’s Champions League final in the home stadium of eventual winners Wydad Casablanca, Caf has also announced that the decisive clash will return to being a two-legged format.

    “I appreciate the huge amount of unhappiness that the president of Al Ahly expressed in relation to the hosting of the African Champions League final here [in Morocco].”

    After over half a century of staging two-legged finals, Africa’s leading club match became a one-off final from 2020-2022.

    BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon