Africa Cup of Nations hosts Ivory Coast will be looking to build on their opening-day victory and book a place in the knockout stages when they take on Nigeria at the Olympic Stadium of Ebimpé on Thursday.
Off the back of a 1-1 opening-day draw against Equatorial Guinea, the Super Eagles will head into the game looking to recover from their disappointing start and get their quest for continental glory back on track.
Ivory Coast kicked off the 34th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations as they would have hoped as they picked up a comfortable 2-0 victory over Guinea-Bissau last Saturday.
Al Nasr man Seko Fofana gave the hosts a dream start to the game as he curled home the opener inside the opening four minutes before Jean-Philippe Krasso put the result beyond doubt with a 58th-minute effort.
Jean-Louis Gasset’s men have now gone seven consecutive games without defeat across all competitions, including four wins on the bounce since a 1-1 friendly draw against South Africa back in October.
This fine run of results has also seen Les Elephants pick up two wins in their two World Cup qualifying games as they hammered Seychelles 9-0 on November 17 before claiming a 2-0 victory over Gambia in Dar es Salaam.
Firing on all cylinders and with the backing of their home supporters, Ivory Coast now set out to pick up successive wins in their opening two games at the AFCON finals for the first time since 2013, when they edged out Togo and Tunisia before playing out a 2-2 draw with Algeria.
Incidentally, Nigeria won the title back in 2013, when they finished as runners-up in Group C before going all the way to the final, where they claimed a narrow 1-0 victory over Burkina Faso at the First National Bank Stadium.
The Super Eagles head into Thursday’s clash under more pressure as they were denied a winning start to the continental showpiece after playing out a 1-1 draw against Equatorial Guinea last Saturday.
Victor Osimhen restored parity less than two minutes after Iban Salvador netted against the run of play to put the Nzalang Nacional in front but the Super Eagles were guilty of a wasteful display in front of goal as they failed to tuck home any of their several clear-cut chances.
This was the latest in the worrying list of dismal results under Portuguese head coach Jose Peseiro, as Nigeria have now gone four back-to-back matches without a win across all competitions, losing once and picking up three draws since October’s 3-2 friendly victory over Mozambique.
The three-time African champions failed to win their two games in the World Cup qualifiers back in November as they were held to a share of the spoils by Lesotho and Zimbabwe, who are currently 148th and 124th in the FIFA World Ranking respectively.
While Nigeria need all three points to avoid the risk of a first group-stage exit since 1982, they will have to be at their best on Wednesday as AFCON hosts are unbeaten in 37 of their last 38 group-stage games and are currently on a run of 17 straight matches without defeat in the group stages since 2012.
The West African heavyweights will draw inspiration from their last AFCON encounter with Ivory Coast when they picked up a 2-1 victory over Les Elephants in the quarter-finals back in 2013 en route to clinching the title in South Africa.
