Ivory Coast will contest the 34th African Cup of Nations final when it hosts Nigeria at the Stade Alassane Ouattara-Ebimpé, outside Abidjan.
This will be the 15th time that the hosts will have the opportunity to play in the final of the tournament, and the first since Egypt defeated. The elephants to win his fifth crown in Cairo 18 years ago.
Given last week's heady highs, it's easy to forget how bleak things had become for the West African giants earlier in the campaign, and how astonishing their run to Sunday's date with destiny has actually been. .
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Remember January 24, just 18 breathless days ago. This was the lowest point. The Ivorians had been crushed 4-0 at home by Equatorial Guinea, ranked 88th in the world, and had just parted ways with their coach Jean Louis Gasset. At the time of the Frenchman's departure, after their disappointing campaign in the group stage, the Ivorians still did not know that they would advance to the round of 16.
When the final whistle blew in their disastrous match against Equatorial Guinea, it took a series of results in the other groups for the hosts, with three points and a -3 goal difference, to advance to the round of 16. 16 as one of the three lucky losers.
With calculators firmly prepared in the Ivorian team camp, one by one, those results trickled in, and qualification was finally confirmed just hours after Gasset's departure, when Morocco defeated Zambia 1-0 in San Pedro. The Elephants found themselves progressing (statistically the worst group stage team to do so in a Nations Cup) but without a head coach.
It is at this point that Gasset's former assistant Emerse Faé, a utility man in 40 caps for the national team during his playing career, moves firmly to center stage, as the Ivory Coast Football Federation turns to him to take the helm and take care of the rest. of the Bell. Ivorians now refer to Faé as the “Special One”, even though he had never officiated a full competitive senior match before January 29.
As I wrote on February 3, following the Elephants' shock round of 16 elimination of Senegal, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what had been the most surprising element of the hosts' campaign at the time. Was it the historic 4-0 rout by Equatorial Guinea, the dismissal of a head coach mid-tournament, the progress despite their miserable record, the late equalizer and penalty shootout victory for Senegal?
The quarter-final against Mali took things to another level. Ivory Coast, in truth, looked uneasy and nervous despite dispatching the reigning champions, with the hapless Odilon Kossounou seeing a red card in the 43rd minute during a display of horror, while Mali had suffered a penalty overturned by VAR , before missing another after the defender's play. first cautionable offense.
In the intense heat and humidity, being down to 10 men seemed fatal for the Elephants, especially when Nene Dorgeles opened the scoring with 71 minutes remaining. However, buoyed by an electrified crowd in Bouaké, Simon Adingra equalized in the 90th minute to send the match into extra time, but with Ivory Coast's 10 men increasingly weakened, it seemed he was only prolonging the inevitable.
1:52
How Ivory Coast went from elimination to the AFCON final
ESPN's Colin Udoh examines how Ivory Coast lost two group matches but still finds itself in the AFCON final against Nigeria on Sunday.
Veteran Max-Alain Gradel later claimed that he was hearing fans singing spontaneously. The Abyyanaise (the country's national anthem) during overtime which gave the team the extra stimulus to make one last push. The result was a backheel from Oumar Diakité in the 122nd minute that deflected a rough Seko Fofana into the Mali net and sent the Ivorians into the final four.
It was the national team's most famous victory since the Golden Generation finally claimed the Nations Cup title by defeating Ghana in Bata in 2015, and arguably, in terms of the way it emotionally united the country, even surpassed that. figure.
The semi-final victory over DR Congo was relatively quiet by comparison, although there was still opportunity for Sébastien Haller – a shadow of himself during this tournament, in truth as he continues to recover from an ankle injury – to make his mark in the competition. Drafted into the starting eleven, Haller scored the only goal of the game with an acrobatic volley (a moment of inspiration that few elephants could have achieved) to settle the duel in the 65th minute.
“We have had difficult days, both emotionally and mentally,” Faé said before the final. “Losing 4-0 at home was terrible and then we had to wait [to qualify.]
“It was difficult for us to imagine that we could have reached the final, but now we are here and here on merit.
He added: “I'm very happy, but also very excited, this is like a dream. When we look back two weeks, at the defeat against Equatorial Guinea, you couldn't have imagined this.”
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What to expect from the AFCON final between Ivory Coast and Nigeria
Colin Udoh previews the AFCON final between Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
All of this brings us to Sunday's encounter with an impressive Nigerian team who have not had as difficult a road as the hosts, having conceded just one goal from open play over the course of the tournament to date.
There is a bubbling sense of anticipation around Abidjan and the belief that, with momentum and local support behind them, the Elephants are about to ascend their throne to claim a third title. However, across the city, some are more realistic about the national team's prospects of achieving another big result. One taxi driver I spoke to, Jean Pierre Kouadio, had been gauging fans' expectations of him during his shifts since the semi-final.
“The hope was to reach the final, so many people say that our AFCON has already been a success,” he began, “but now that we are here, we have to keep the cup with us. We can't let it go away. final”. country.”
The fervor is increasing. The city is awash in orange Puma uniforms from the Ivory Coast, and everyone from street vendors to waiters wear the national team's colors as if it were a civil responsibility. Mannequins in stores not normally dedicated to sportswear have been stripped of their usual clothing and now wear the same, while taxis carry Moroccan flags, in honor of the Atlas Lions' contribution to the unlikely survival of the hosts in the group stage.
There is definitely something magical about the team's trajectory, which captured attention and revealed a certain romance in the population's relationship with the national team. It is a special bond, epitomized by the fanboy antics of Didier Drogba and his teammates, Messrs. Wilfried Bony and Djibril Cissé, as they celebrated the final whistle of the semi-final, on the Ebimpé touchline, with the joy of the young people who witnessed his first match. international tournament.
At the heart of the Elephants' resurgence is Faé, who has managed to walk a fine line between wide-eyed wonder and rolled-up-his-sleeves pragmatism as he set about the unenviable task of picking up the pieces after Gasset left his post.
“Even as a player I didn't experience such powerful moments on a stage like this,” he told ESPN earnestly after the semifinal victory. “I've never experienced anything like this before, but we're making the most of it as we go.”
His openness, honesty and patriotism have endeared him to a population left devastated after the 4-0 defeat, and he has already demonstrated some impressive managerial fundamentals in the first three games of his first role as senior head coach.
So far, Faé eliminated the African champions, oversaw a 10-man extra-time comeback against Mali and won an important semi-final at home. How many rookie coaches can say that? Faé, like his team, continues to grow as immortality lurks.
“What's changed is that we've found trust,” he said. “We lacked speed, conviction, confidence in the group stage, mentally we were not there.
“However, after eliminating Senegal, the defending champions, and then scoring in the 90th and 120th minutes with 10 men against Mali, it made us smile and restored our confidence.”
Repeating what happened in 2019, when Senegal and Algeria faced each other in the group stage before playing in the final, Nigeria and Ivory Coast must now face each other again. The Super Eagles had the advantage in the first match, winning 1-0, but, as Faé attests, a lot has changed since then.
