Ivory Coast Was ‘AlreAdy Dead’ At The Africa Cup. But The Elephants Are Somehow In The Semifinals – News18

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast: Host nation Ivory Coast is writing Hollywood scripts on the Africa Cup of Nations.

The crew has been implausibly avoiding elimination many times within the event and now, in some way, the Elephants have made it to the semifinals.

The gamers held their heads after the newest unimaginable escape as in the event that they couldn’t consider it, both.

“This evening was magnificent, magnificent,” Ivory Coast captain Serge Aurier stated after Saturday’s dramatic 2-1 win over Mali. “It’s really what we wanted to do – not the emotional roller coaster like that. But that‘s what makes football, and that’s what makes the beauty of this Africa Cup right from the start.”

Ivory Coast was all however eradicated after a 4-0 defeat to Equatorial Guinea within the group stage, its second straight after a loss to Nigeria. The Ivorian federation fired its coach because the nation wallowed in disappointment.

After scraping via to the knockout stage due to a Morocco win over Zambia in one other group, Ivory Coast tried unsuccessfully to rent one other coach for the rest of the competitors.

Next up was defending champion Senegal, arguably the strongest crew within the event.

Senegal scored within the fourth minute and appeared set to eradicate Ivory Coast till Franck Kessié scored a penalty within the 86th minute to ship the sport to additional time. Kessié then scored the profitable penalty within the shootout to offer Ivory Coast a spot within the quarterfinals.

That late drama was surpassed within the subsequent recreation in opposition to Mali on Saturday, when Ivory Coast had a participant despatched off and was down a aim after Nene Dorgeles’ sensible strike for the Eagles within the 71st.

But Simon Adingra’s final-minute equalizer despatched the sport to additional time, and Oumar Diakité scored in stoppage time of additional interval to ship the Elephants charging into the semifinals.

“We were already dead after the defeat against Equatorial Guinea. We were resurrected thanks to Morocco’s win,” Ivory Coast interim coach Emerse Faé stated after his second recreation in cost. “We said we’ve nothing left to lose, we’ll give everything, fight to the last minute. A match is 90 minutes or more and we don’t give up. And now, there’s still hope.”

Ivory Coast will play Congo within the semifinals on Wednesday on the 60,000-capability Alassane Ouattara Stadium in Abidjan, with the winner happening to face Nigeria or South Africa in Sunday’s closing in the identical stadium.

The Elephants might want to face Congo with out aim-scorer Diakité, who was despatched off for a second yellow card for taking his shirt off within the wild celebrations that adopted his winner in opposition to Mali. Teammate Wilfried Singo tried unsuccessfully to cease the 20-12 months-previous Diakité from eradicating his jersey. Defender Odilon Kossounou, who had been despatched off earlier, can also be suspended.

“We have other weapons,” Faé stated. “We’ll take it all in, we’ll rest, we’ll recover because we played two periods of extra time in five days. We’ll analyze Congo well and look at what we can prepare to play against this team and cause them as many problems as possible.”

Diakité didn’t appear too involved about lacking the semifinal.

“If it continues like this, I think we can do nice things,” he stated.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)