Africa’s biggest tournament has concluded with a fairly close win for the host nation, Ivory Coast (the Elephants), after defeating Nigeria (the Super Eagles) 2:1 in the finals of AFCON 2023 on Sunday night.
This victory becomes the country’s third Nations Cup win, with the previous ones coming in 1992 and 2015.
The match was played at the Alassane Ouattara stadium in Abidjan on Sunday, February 11, 2024, and produced another scintillating performance as expected. The Ivorians came from a goal down to overcome the African giant, Nigeria, which was considered to be one of the favorites to win the trophy after their amazing form.
The opening goal of the match was scored by the Super Eagles’ captain, William Troost-Ekong, who nodded the ball into the back of the net in the 38th minute.
The Nigerians were looking like a formidable team, only for the host nation to launch their major comeback in the second half to clinch the trophy from Nigeria’s grasps by scoring the two goals.
The first of the Ivorian goals was scored by Elephants’ captain, Franck Kessie in the 62nd minute to equalize the score, and the other came in the 81st minute by Borussia Dortmund striker, Sebastien Haller, who beat testicular cancer two years ago.
The AFCON 2023 champions defied great odds and upsets, right from suffering two defeats in the group stages, the departure of head coach, Jean-Louis Gasset, and the appointment of assistant coach, Emerse Fae as interim coach, to qualifying as the worst-placed team in the round of 16 knockout stage.
Nevertheless, Ivory Coast cruised on through the knockout stages, defeating the defending champions Senegal and Mali, both with late goals during the game.
Regardless, the Elephants showed dominance during the match, having possession of 62% and 8 shots on target in contrast to the Super Eagle’s single shot on target. It was their young starlet, Simon Adingra, aged 22, who inspired the team to victory with a man of the match performance with two assists in the second half to complete the comeback.
Other individual awards at the end of the tournament include the Best Coach award, which was received by Ivory Coast coach, Emerse Fae; Ronwen Williams from South Africa took best goalkeeper; and Emilio Nsue won the Puma Golden Boot after scoring five goals in four games for Equatorial Guinea.
The Man of the Competition award went to William Troost-Ekong following his remarkable performance and leadership that saw his nation, Nigeria, take home the silver medal. Ivory Coast’s sensational talent, Simon Adingra, was the tournament’s Best Young Player.
Following the success of this year’s tournament, we can only anticipate another fantastic one next year when Morocco hosts the 2025 AFCON.
