“To meet Blue Sharks of Cape Verde on Saturday at 9 pm”
Defending Champions, Teranga Lions of Senegal were unbelievably thrown out of the AFCON tournament by wobbling and fumbling hosts Elephants of Ivory Coast by 4-5 penalties after 1-1 at full time at the Charles Konan Stadium in Yamoussokro on Monday night.
Moussa Niakhate of Nottingham Forest of England lost the 3rd kick for Senegal and every other player scored their kicks. Niakhate wept sore as the Elephant marched into the quarters. It was surprising that Penalty safe specialist Mende could not save even a kick.
Sadio Mane plotted an early win for Senegal when he sent a thorough pass to Saudi-based Habib Diallo who got the curtain-raiser in the 4th minute. Diallo had also scored against Cameroon in the 3-1 victory over the Samuel Eto Fills boys.
The equalizer for Ivory Coast came in a dramatic way. Mende in goal for Senegal fouled an Ivorian in the 6 yard box and Ref Atcho waved it on. The Ivorian players swarm on him like bees and he began to flash yellow like a child flashes his toy.
Two Ivorian players got the yellow for protesting; two coaches of Senegal including Aliou Cisse bagged yellow probably for uncomplimentary words and then VAR came to declare a yellow for Goalkeeper Eduard Mendy and a penalty to follow.
Another Saudi based player, Franck Kessive stepped forward as Fofana was convulsing at the Ivorian Bench for a goal and ‘fiam’ the equalizer came 86th minute making the fans to go into frenzy.
Centre Ref, Pierre Ghislain Atcho born 10th October 1992 and hails from Gabon will have to explain to the AFCON 23 Referees Committee why he refused to give former African Footballer of the Year, Sadio Mane a straight red card but instead flashed the yellow in the 9th minute when he rough tackled Nottingham Forest and Ivory Coast Midfielder, Ibrahim Sangare. A Journalist said it is like giving Lionel Messi a straight red and I don’t get it.
Ivory Coast rising from the dust of defeat will meet the Blue Sharks of Cape Verde in the 4th quarterfinal on Saturday 3rd February at 9pm.
Senegal is the only team to have acquired full 9 points at the group stages having slammed the Lions of Cameroon 3-1; trampled on the Scorpions of Gambia 3-0 and confounded the Sylli Stars of Guinea 2-0. She scored 8 goals and conceded only one.
Ivory Coast had lost hope of playing the Round of 16 after their poor performances and the citizens took to the streets protesting. Their Coach was promptly fired as lamentations of worst ever performance rented the media space. The only victory for Ivory Coast was the 2-0 win over Guinea Bissau as she lost by a lone goal to Nigeria and got trounced 4-0 by Equatorial Guinea in a stunning game. So they had 3 points scored 2 goals and conceded 5 in their group A fixtures.
There were a couple of times both countries met. On 28th February 2009 in an AFCON duel they played goalless; Ivory Coast hosted a world cup qualifier on 12th October 2013 and won 3-1 but on the second leg in Dakar it was 1-1 on 16th November 2013; in a Friendly match of 27th March 2017 it was 1-1 again; both played goalless in a WAFU match on 19th September 2017 and in an AFCON match played on 14th January 2023 Senegal won by a lone goal. Checking the records which are voluminous I found out that the biggest win of Ivory Coast over Senegal was a 6-2 win in an AFCON match on 13th October 2012.
Elephants of Ivory Coast ranked 49 in the world and seeking a title since 2015 is in their 25th appearance and has been champions twice in 1992 and 2015. Their biggest win was 11-0 massacre of Central African Republic in Abidjan on 20th of December 1961 and their biggest loss was to the Dutch team 0-5 on 4th June 2017.
The podium finish of Ivory Coast is a bit impressive. Got Bronze in 1986 at Egypt defeating Morocco 3-2; won the 92 edition beating Nigeria 11-10 on penalties as the real match ended 0-0 after extra time; won Bronze at Tunisia 94 beating Mali 3-1; came from the coolers to bag a Silver in Egypt 2006 winning 4-2 on penalties after goalless with the hosts Egypt; made the 4th place at Ghana 2008 losing the Bronze 2-4 to Ghana; when Equatorial Guinea and Gabon co-hosted in 2012, the Elephants lost the trophy to Zambia winning Silver via 8-7 penalty shootouts after a goalless match and in Equatorial Guinea 2015 the Elephants carted the AFCON trophy via penalty kicks 9-8 after goalless with the Black Stars of Ghana.
The last set of Round of 16 matches is on Tuesday (tomorrow) when Mali and neighbors Burkina Faso will slug it out at 6pm at Coulibaly Stadium and Morocco will lock horns with South Africa San Pedro Stadium at 9pm.
Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line.
#CAF #IvoryCoast2024 #NFF.
