Ivory Coast 1-0 DR Congo (Haller 65′)
ABIDJAN — The noise was deafening, close to 60,000 people screaming and whistling, a fervour that rose in pitch as Sebastien Haller’s volley reached the top of its arc and started to descend more quickly than Lionel Mpasi could quite believe. As it dipped below the crossbar and in, the smoke bombs were released. An orange cloud hung high in the air for several minutes, as if pushed up by the sheer energy of the celebrations below.
Haller’s finish was lucky. He did not connect well with his shot. He missed one glorious headed chance before half-time and one lifted lob when afforded the chance to finish off the tie. He will not care and nor will anyone who had filled Abidjan’s streets all week in their orange or white shirts and with flags attached to cars and homes. Haller scored a hat-trick against Ivory Coast for France’s Under-21 team in a past international life. Now he is leading the entire country into the Afcon final and, possibly, beyond to national immortality.
It was not a classic; nor did we expect one. Evenings in Abidjan don’t seem to cool down, no meteorological sigh of relief. Instead the heat just builds up and hangs heavy like a cloud threatening to burst but never releasing. It was impossibly sultry and sticky by kick-off. Every quick break forward by either team made you feel sapped just watching. Tactical circumspection was inevitable.
Still, Ivory Coast merited progression. When there was adventure, it generally came from them. DR Congo – overachievers and underdogs – started the game brightly, one goal disallowed and at least one more threatened, but then seemed to sit back as if out of puff. We wondered if they were just waiting; they were drowning.
Emerse Fae’s team sensed an unmissable opportunity. Haller had his first chance. Franck Kessie hit the post with a left foot shot that rasped past Mpasi. Wilfried Singo of Monaco overlapped at speed. Simon Adingra, finally fit to start, is the best dribbler at this tournament. He just needed time to recover. His team somehow bought him that time.
Ivory Coast are in the lead!
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) February 7, 2024
Sébastien Haller deliverspic.twitter.com/yqKfRKUuc4
Yet if the game was won anywhere, it was in the hundred or more spaces that Kessie and Sekou Fofana rushed to fill and almost always got there first. There were doubts about the fitness of Saudi Pro League players coming into Afcon, but these two were physically and technically immense in the biggest international match of their careers. Fofana has the added trait of anticipation: if he’s running somewhere, expect the ball to arrive soon. He may well have been the best player in the knockout stages.
This has been a tournament of unstoppable chaotic force from start to finish, but nobody epitomises it better than Ivory Coast and their lord of mania: Fae. Three weeks ago, the former Reading midfielder had never coached a senior match: Clermont reserves and the national team Under-23s were his peak.
Then La Calamité, the Ivorian’s 4-0 loss to Equatorial Guinea and the sacking of Jean-Louis Gasset as head coach with the hosts likely going (or maybe it should be staying) home. If Ghana had not conceded twice in stoppage time in a scenario none of Abidjan’s four-and-a-half million could control, none of this could have happened. Instead, Ivory Coast squeezed through and suddenly needed an interim. Fae it was – they have never been more into him.
Fae’s work since makes him a mini-miracle worker. He has ignored his lack of experience, the pressure upon himself and the desperation of a nation not to waste their chance. He was composed and genial and jokey in his post-match press conference, in front of people who were ready to write his career obituary before he had realised it had begun. Fae has lifted a country off its knees and taken it damn near nirvana itself. One more win and they will call this inadvertent saviour their king.
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