By our sports correspondent
The Ivory Coast national team’s performance at the 2024 Africa Cup of Nations tournament appeared lackluster compared to previous years.
This can be attributed to the retirement of key players such as Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure, who were instrumental in the team’s previous successes.
Without these stars, the team struggled to secure victories as easily as before. Ivory Coast has historically been a dominant force in the Africa Cup of Nations, having won the tournament twice (in 1992 and 2015) and reaching the finals on two occasions (in 2006 and 2012).
Their success was due to the presence of numerous professional players from top European football clubs.
Despite hosting the tournament, Ivory Coast’s performance was subpar, narrowly avoiding elimination in the group stages by finishing third with only three points from three games.
They advanced to the knockout stage as third best runners up and faced Senegal in the second round of the tournament and made a 1-1 draw before eliminating them on penalty shoot outs.
They are likely to struggle even at quarter finals because they don’t have a play maker and a striker that can help them win games.
They sacked manager Jean-Louis Gasset after the group stage of the tournament. Gasset is a former French football manager and a player who played for French Football Club Montepellier as a midfielder for 10 years.
He joined the team on May, 20, 2022 and left the job on 24th, January,2024 is playing at the tournament with the assistant coach with the help of the technical team that he has been working with and a new coach will be hired after the tournament.