The Elephants are certainly favourites heading into the game against Guinea and Toure insists the team are driven to succeed after continuous failures in the Afcon tournament.
“Before I retire I really want to win something with my country. I am confident that Herve Renard will take us as far as possible,” said Toure.
“He is someone who has a lot of experience of Africa. He is someone with lots of charisma and he knows what it takes to win.”
If the Ivoirians are to succeed at the Afcon they will have to improve their defence which saw them conceed 11 goals in six matches during qualifying.
Renard will be happy that they scored 13 goals in the same number of games, but aware that their defence is the reason they finished second in their qualifying group behind Cameroon.
The Elephants will fancy their chances against Guinea who have failed to beat them in their last eight outings.
In total, the two countries have met in 15 official matches with Guinea losing ten times, winning three and the other two ending in draws.
Guinea’s last victory over Ivory Coast came in 1994. Since then they have not won a single game, but will take heart from the fact they played to a goalless draw in their most recent encounter in February 2012 in Abidjan.
This will be Guinea’s 11th appearance at the Afcon and they will be hoping to come close to the form that saw them earn their best ever finish in 1976 as runners-up.
Guinea qualified for Afcon 2015 after finishing second in their qualifying group behind Ghana.
No comments:
Post a Comment