It is an exciting quarter-finals! The great team of Ivory Coast meets the fragile one of Nigeria.
Manchester City's middle fielder, African double Ballon d'Or knows that his country is the favorite of this Afcon
Ivory Coast wants to take revenge on his lost final last year against Zambia.
Yaya Touré, one of Ivory Coast's stars just entrust his collegues of Footafrica365.fr that only God will decide ...
"It will be a very difficult match. We will focus on that. Nigeria is
full of great and good players. We believe in ourselves. If this will
be our year? I do not know. Only God knows. We pray, and we did our best
on the field.
"There are 3 more games to play, we hope that everything will be all
right. It would be a great opportunity for us, who have won many times
with our clubs. We were expecting this for nearly ten years; it would be
a fantastic achievement. But everything is in the hands of God, and we
hope that this time will be the right one "
Elephants are treating their Afcon quarter-final against fellow
heavyweights Nigeria like a title match as the tournament favourites bid
to end a decade of disappointment.
The West African giants set up Sunday's clash in Rustenburg after the
Ivorians topped Group D, while Nigeria finished second in Group C.
"This match against Nigeria will be like another final," defender
Kolo Toure said after Ivory Coast drew 2-2 in their last group match
against Algeria on Wednesday.
"Nigeria is a top team, they have great players. We know it's going
to be a very, very tough game. We need to concentrate, try not to make
too many mistakes."
"If we believe in ourselves, I think we can do it."
For a fifth successive tournament, the Elephants are favourites to
win the title but Africa's top-ranked team have failed to live up to
expectations on the four previous occasions.
"Winning this tournament would be massive for us. We've been waiting
some 10 years to do this, so this would be a huge achievement," Toure
added.
"We are just praying and doing our best on the pitch like we did for
the first three games. But everything is in the hands of God and we just
hope that this time will be our time."
Older members of the nation's exalted generation like Didier Drogba,
Kolo Toure, Didier Zokora and Emmanuel Eboue are making one last
realistic attempt to win the trophy that has eluded the country since
1992.
They struggled in their first match of the tournament when they edged
Togo 2-1 but have since shown all the qualities of a title-winning
team, beating Tunisia 3-0 and drawing against Africa's second-ranked
team, Algeria.
Even captain Drogba displayed glimpses of his old powerful self in
the final group match, his perseverance paying off as he steered home a
header.
