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WORDS ON: AFRICA CUP OF NATIONS
Posted on: Wed 18 Jan 2012
Both Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou rightly acknowledge the challenge is a tough one given the nature of tournament football, but the signs could hardly be better that in the next month they might win their first silverware at international level.
The 28th Africa Cup of Nations kicks-off this weekend and Ivory Coast are the pre-tournament favourites and the highest in the Fifa rankings of the countries competing.
They won six games out of six with a +14 goal difference in qualifying for these finals, and this in an era in African football when the traditionally strong nations can no longer take it for granted they will cruise through.
Egypt, winners of the last three Africa Cup of Nations finished bottom of their qualification group. John Mikel Obi and Nigeria didn't qualify either and nor did Cameroon. South Africa didn't make it either.
Even the tournament warm-up in Abu Dhabi for the Chelsea pair is going near perfectly. Both were on target as Tunisia were beaten 2-1 in a friendly there on Friday, Drogba netting a penalty, and on Monday Kalou headed the only goal against Libya. Drogba hit the post during that game.
However you won't find any overconfidence in the Elephants camp. Ivory Coast have been here before.
Though their chances of being the best performers from Africa in the last two World Cups were hampered by cruelly difficult group stage opponents, there is little denying they have underperformed on the African continental championship stage since their one triumph in 1992.
They did reach the final in 2006, only losing on penalties to Egypt with Drogba on that occasion missing from the spot (pictured below), but in 2008 they lost heavily to the same team in the semi-final, going down 4-1 and two years ago there was an even earlier exit to Algeria.
This time they travel to a tournament jointly hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea that begins on Saturday.
Drogba and Kalou begin their group stage on Sunday with a match against Sudan, followed by one against Burkina Faso the following Thursday and then they take on Angola on Monday 30 January. The first and second-placed sides in each group go into the quarter-finals.
Despite what has widely been reported, Bertrand Traore who is in the Burkina Faso squad is not a Chelsea player. He did undergo a six-week trial period with the club during which he played for our youth team in a friendly against Arsenal at the Emirates this season, but that trial has ended.
Speaking to the official Chelsea website about Ivory Coast's Africa Cup of Nations hopes, Kalou plays down the significance of their storming progress this far.
'Qualifying and the competition are two different things,' the 26-year-old says. 'In qualifying you don't play against the best teams but if you go to the competition you play against all the teams who did their best.
'The games in our group are all difficult games but we are preparing well for the competition and the quality we have in our team, I think we can do something good.
'Of course we have lost against different teams in the past tournaments but you always learn from these bad experiences as well as good experiences. We have so many qualities in the team and sometimes we didn't do the effort to come together as a team to try to win games. It is very important when you meet strong teams to forget about the individuality and to try to put out a good game and good team spirit.'
Kalou made his international debut after the defeat in the 2006 final but has played the last two Cup of Nations. Drogba was already Ivorian captain by 2006 and recently reflected on the past three attempts to win the trophy.
'We could have won it because our squad was really good but it is not only about the quality of the squad,' he said. 'When you play teams like Egypt they had a lot of understanding because they had played together for nine years, and when we lost to Egypt in the final it was in Egypt and we lost on penalties. We had a great tournament but I hope this year is going to be a lot better than the last African Cup when we went out in the quarter-finals.
'We had a good qualification but this competition is the one all the African countries want to win so it is going to be tough again.
'There is Senegal, there is Morocco, there is Tunisia, there is Gabon who are playing at home so they are going to be a good team, and there will always be some surprises. Only one will win the Cup, I hope we are going to be the country.'
Kalou selects Morocco and Ghana as countries he thinks will be major rivals. Ghana may be without Michael Essien again but they have many of the players who got them as far as the quarter-finals of the last World Cup.
Morocco can select Arsenal's Marouane Chamakh and QPR's Adel Taarabt plus former Chelsea reserve team player Mbark Boussoufa (pictured below left) who has since twice been Belgian Player of the Year. He now plays in Russia at the same club as Yury Zhirkov and Samuel Eto'o.
Senegal, who qualified at the expense of Eto'o and Cameroon, have in their attack Papiss Cisse who has just signed for Newcastle.
Looking at the Ivory Coast squad, Kolo and Yaya Toure, Didier Zokora, Emmanuel Eboue, Cheick Tiote and Gervinho need no introduction to Premier League watchers. Kalou lists some of the younger players who might make an impression for his country.
'There is Wilfried Bony who plays for Vitesee Arnhem, a very good striker who is strong and can shoot with either foot,' he says. 'There is Max Gradel who plays for Saint-Etienne and Seydou Doumbia from CSKA Moscow.'
Both attacking players as well, Gradel was before this season a Leeds player and Doumbia is the current Footballer of the Year in Russia.
Despite their young talent coming through, it is natural for any Chelsea fan to suspect Ivory Coast's greatest chance will be to have Drogba at his unplayable best.
'Didier and everybody else must be at their top,' insists Kalou, 'because this is a big tournament and you cannot go with just one player on top form, you need to have the whole group - but it is an extra advantage to have Didier in top form because then we know he will score some important goals.'
Ivory Coast versus Sudan kicks off at 4pm UK time on Sunday. The final of the tournament is on Sunday 12 February.
http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10268~2580664,00.html
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s_manavvan   
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19 ม.ค. 55 05:31:58
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{{ ........... Always the Blues CHELSEAFC 19.12.54 ..............}}
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