Côte d’Ivoire, the AFCON Winner No One Saw Coming

The game of football is incredible in so many ways. If you haven’t been following the latest 2023 AFCON competition, you don’t know the half of it. The Africa Cup of Nations is not only known for producing some memorable football moments and producing a bunch of future stars and talents. It is also known for creating some of the most quirky situations that you don’t get to see elsewhere.

From last-minute host changes to regimes changing mid-tournament, all the way to witch doctors casting courses on opposing players. The AFCON has seen it all. But what it hasn’t seen is the feel-good story that was the Ivory Coast, the most recent AFCON winner.

Things Were Not Looking Good for the Elephants

Ivory Coast hosted the 2023 AFCON tournament, interestingly set in January 2024. The Elephants played in Group A alongside Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau. It sounded like an easy group to get past, especially since, besides the two secured spots, the third team could potentially advance through.

Even though the AFCON past winner lists say that Côte d’Ivoire has won the competition two times, they were not the heavy favourites. Nevertheless, no one could have predicted what was to come next.

The Elephants started things off with an easy win (2-0) versus Guinea-Bissau but then dropped the next two games. Losing 1-0 to Nigeria still gave them hope. But the utter dismantling that they went through against Equatorial Guinea and losing by 4-0 was enough for head coach Jean-Louis Gasset to leave immediately.

Then Came the Elimination Stage

Even without their coach, the Ivory Coast still managed to go through as the third team in the group. This meant that the association needed to find a substitute fast. Emerse Faé, the current assistant coach and former player, became the caretaker of the team, tasked to finish off the tournament as best he could.

At that point, the Elephants’ AFCON winner odds were even lower. Especially as they played the current champions and tournament favourites, Senegal. Surprisingly, the Elephants managed to edge out the Lions of Teranga after a penalty shootout, advancing further.

What came as a bigger surprise were the wins against Mali in the quarterfinals and DR Congo in the semis, which set up a rematch in the AFCON final against Nigeria.

A Miracle Was About to Happen 

According to the all-time AFCON winner list, Nigeria is a three-time winner. They immediately became the favourites in the final against Ivory Coast, especially after taking the lead after 38 minutes of gameplay. 

But the second half produced one of the most tear-jerking football stories we have ever seen. First, Franke Kessie levelled the score in the 62nd minute of the game. Setting up a historic goal for Sebastian Haller to earn his team the trophy that nobody believed in.

To make things even more interesting, Haller had been diagnosed with testicular cancer only a year ago. He managed to overcome it, get back to form, and score one of the most important goals of his life. Furthermore, Emerse Faé became head coach as he and his teams wrote the biggest underdog story that the world of football has ever seen.