Ivory Coast are certainly one of the favourites to win the 2012 African cup of nations. They did no harm to their favourite tag after they secured the quarterfinals place following a 2-0 win over Burkina Faso.
Ivory Coast have undoubtedly been one of the favourites to win the African cup of nations in the previous two editions. However, they have failed to deliver the goods right when it mattered and it was mostly due to the over reliance on Chelsea striker Didier Drogba. This time around, there seems to be a few changes within the Ivory Coast squad particularly due to the age of Didier Drogba.
Players like Gervinho have emerged as a real contender to take on the position of Didier Drogba in the future. The match against Burkina Faso may look easy on paper, but it one of the potential banana skin’s in this year’s tournament. However, Ivory Coast did extremely well to get past Burkina Faso, with Chelsea striker Salomon Kalou coming up with the goal that helped Ivory Coast set one foot in the quarterfinals. Sudan and Angola are the other teams that currently have a chance of progressing into the next round of the African cup of nations.
“I’m satisfied with the spirit of the group, though it’s true that there are a lot of things to improve. I hope he will recover soon because he is a very important player for us. It’s very important to get through the next round. Our objective is to finish in first place in the group,” Ivory Coast manager Zahoui said after the match. Gervinho was especially wasteful the match, but Zahoui saw the overall picture and said that he was extremely satisfied with the team’s performance. The lack of recovery time is probably the only source of concern for Zahoui.