Ivory Coast Justifies Tag as 'Knockout Chokers' as Nigeria matches on to the Semi-finals

It was a game that promised to be one the best matches of AFCON 2013 and it did not disappoint in terms of great football, high tension, heartbreak and surprise moments. Cote d’ Ivoire came into the game as favourites on the back of an excellent group stage campaign that had seen them play flowing football and score good goals. The mood for the game was set when it was confirmed that Nigeria would play the West African Elelphants after finishing second in group C. A string of twitter post allegedly from the Ivorian right back Emmanuel Eboue teasing the Super eagles by throwing jabs at them that the elephants were going to eat Nigeria like super fried chicken set the mood for battle in this game.
The Ivorians came out with a four-four-two formation that looked on book like a team that was unbeatable. Drogba as the main striker, Yaya Toure as an attacking midfielder playing just behind Drogba, Kalou and Gervinho on the wings to bring pace and trickery into the game, Tiene and Eboue at left and right back respectively Zokora and Bamba at centre back and Tiote and Romaric in midfield to complete the golden squad of Ivorian football.
The Nigerians on the other hand played a formation that looked weak on paper but turned out to be solid and perfect in its performance today. Ambrose, Emeruo, Oboabona, Echijele played in defense while the midfield was made up of Moses, Emenike, home based player Mba, Onazi and Obi while Ideye played up front as a lone striker.
The match started out with Nigeria dominating proceedings in the first half; the Nigerian midfield dominated possession in such a way that lively wingers Gervinho and Kalou were totally lost in the game while the service to Drogba was also absent. The midfield duo of Romaric and Tiote who were mostly busy defending are lucky not to have been carded in this game for the countless fouls committed especially by Tiote. The efforts of the cool, calm and collected Eagles players were finally rewarded when a thunderbolt set-piece strike was loaded into the back of the net by Emenike while Barry looked on in dismay. A cheap free kick in the second half saw Tiote score a free header. Credit however must be given to the Nigerians who had such high spirits to score a beautiful second goal on the lone efforts of the home based player Mba who drove into the box and tucked in his shot in the left hand side of the net in the 78^th minute, from then on the eagles held possession and finished off the game in style.

The irony of this match is that this is the third time that Ivory Coast has been beaten in the knock-out stages of the Afcon competition thus earning them the nick name of ‘Knockout chokers’. The first time this happened was during Afcon 2010 in the quarter-final match between Ivory coast and Algeria; the Ivorians were set to win the match 2-1 but just before the referee blew the final whistle conceded a late goal to Bougherra to take the game into extra time and it was rounded up by Bouzza in the 2^nd minute of extra time. The second time was at the next edition Afcon 2012; the Ivorians came in as favourites to win the competition seeing as Egypt had not qualified for the tournament but the Zambians defied all odds by beating the Ivorians on penalty shootouts to win the tournament. The third time is today; again the Ivorians came into this match as favourites but were overshadowed by a wonderful display of fearlessness, control and the take-charge attitude of the Nigerian players today. What is common in the three situations is the fact that this golden team of Ivory Coast came into each game brimming with confidence, labeled as favourites and led by Didier Drogba but on each of these occasions Drogba has not scored, the team lost concentration, failed to score enough goals, did not deliver on the faith of fans back home nor on the tag of winners put on them. It seemed like the tag ‘knockout chokers’ has been sealed on the Elephants today while on the other hand the Super Eagles has brushed off the nick name of super chickens given to them by Ivorian football analyst Mamadou Gaye during Afcon 2010.

Most of the golden generation will probably be retiring after this failure including the likes of Didier ‘Maestro’ Zokora, Didier Drogba and Emmanuel Eboue. The golden era failed to win any meaningful trophies, instead always under-performing when the stakes were at the highest. Hopefully this victory has justified the inclusion of six home based players in the team seeing as Mba scored a goal and the duo of Godfrey Oboabona and Kenneth Omeruo were able to nullify the threat of Drogba and Toure in attacking positions, thus Nigeria will be justifiably motivated for their semi-final clash against Mali. What remains to be seen is if the tempo and concentration displayed in the game today will be repeated in the semi-final game against Mali.