Ivory Coast coach Emerse Fae described his team’s achievement in winning through to the final of the Africa Cup of Nations as being “like a dream” after the tournament hosts beat the Democratic Republic of Congo 1-0 in Wednesday’s last-four encounter.
Sebastien Haller scored the only goal of the game in the 65th minute at the Ebimpe Olympic Stadium to take Ivory Coast through to Sunday’s final against Nigeria.
It is a remarkable turnaround for the Elephants, who were on the brink of elimination after losing 4-0 to Equatorial Guinea at the same stadium in their final group match on January 22.
“We are happy, we’re really moved. It’s like a dream, when you go back two weeks to the defeat here against Equatorial Guinea,” said Fae.
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“It was hard then to imagine that we might qualify for the final of our own AFCON.”
That defeat was Ivory Coast’s heaviest ever home loss and they looked certain to be eliminated in the first round, only to scrape through as the last of the four best third-placed teams thanks to Morocco winning their last group game against Zambia.
Coach Jean-Louis Gasset was sacked following the Equatorial Guinea debacle and so Fae, who had been an assistant, was promoted to the role of interim coach.
Under him, Ivory Coast beat holders Senegal on penalties in the last 16, and then came from behind to beat Mali in extra time in the quarter-finals, despite playing most of that match with 10 men.
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