Kessié brings Ivory Coast back to life as Afcon hosts bury Senegal | Africa Cup of Nations 2023

A week earlier, Ivory Coast had beaten Equatorial Guinea 4-0. They are currently in the last eight of the African Cup of Nations having eliminated the champions. They are a team that has repeatedly looked dead and buried since the tournament began, never more so than when they were behind by a goal with four minutes left on Monday, but still somehow a zombie led by Sebastian Haller. The Corps advanced to the quarterfinals against Mali or Burkina Faso. .

Senegal, the best team in the group stage, appeared to be in control until Haller was brought on in the 72nd minute. This looked like a classic case of scoring an early goal and then holding the opponent at arm’s length to end the match. It wasn’t, so the curse continues. No defending champion has reached the quarter-finals of the Nations Cup since Egypt in 2010.

For Ivory Coast, the late collapse against Equatorial Guinea brought a sense of terminal defeat, a kind of capitulation that could stain the national psyche for years, but they woke up a week later and found themselves found himself inexplicably still in the competition. (Or perhaps it’s not entirely inexplicable: Had Abram Grant’s Zambia scored one more goal in either game, Ivory Coast would not have emerged as the best third-place team).

However, they learned they had lost Jean-Louis Gasset, who had been sacked as manager following the humiliation of Equatorial Guinea. What a 70-year-old French player with no experience in African soccer was doing in Africa in the first place is a completely different question. The Ivory Coast have signed former Reading midfielder Emers, who had never played for them, after their bold approach to the French women’s team to loan Hervé Renard, who led them to the Nations Cup in 2015, was rejected.・Fae will temporarily serve as the director. She coached games all her life. It all seemed rather careless for a country that reportedly spent $1 billion hosting the tournament.

The positive for Ivory Coast was that it had nothing to lose. No one expects anything from the undead. And perhaps age doesn’t mean much to zombies. The quest for eternal youth will probably seem futile to those who have recently broken up. This may explain the return of 36-year-old Max Gradel to the front for his first start of the tournament, one of five changes since the defeat against Equatorial Guinea.

The problem is, the undead may be good at attacking the vast ice walls of the northern border, rural Pennsylvania farmhouses, and Crouch End pubs, but they’re not good at crosses. It took just four minutes for Habib Diallo to enter the box following Sadio Mane’s pass from the left, before spinning into the top corner and belting a shot that struck the Ivorian prospect’s head. He hit a great shot.

There was a sense that the Ivorians had regained some sense of self-respect as they controlled the long period of rule that followed. Perhaps things would have been different if Mane’s lunge on Ibrahim Sangare had resulted in a red card instead of a yellow, but Senegal are barricaded in a pub basement with an aging rifle and dwindling ammo. I couldn’t see it.

However, the problem with the undead is that they are notoriously difficult to take down. There was always the potential threat that a festering arm might emerge from the grave and grab an unsuspecting Senegalese by the ankle, but Edouard Mendy calmly scored a number of crosses and the body was removed. remained safely buried — at least until Haller was sidelined with an injury. Jean-Philippe Classo was brought on in the 72nd minute, which was a big problem for Ivory Coast.

Moments later, substitute Franck Kessié drew a sharp save from Mendy, but the keeper denied Nicolas Pepe’s shot. However, Haller’s pass freed Pepe and Mendy brought him down. This was what Ivory Coast lacked. This may have been their ability. Kessié scored from the spot and Senegal suddenly found themselves with four minutes to go in the quarter-finals and no longer winning the battle. The corpse’s sticky fingers grabbed my calf as it rose up.

Once they had a hold on them, they could not be shaken off in a gunfight. Nottingham Forest’s Moussa Niakate hit the post with a penalty and Kessie converted the decisive kick. Senegal’s title defense is over, but the Ivorian is probably not dead yet.