Bookmakers, including leading South African bookmakers Flashbet are favoring Ivory Coast to be Africa’s winning team at the 2014 FIFA Soccer World Cup, which begins on June 12. Soccer fans across the world are also rooting for the West African nation.
Bookies aren’t the only ones predicting the Ivory Coast will come out No. 1 among the five African teams competing this year. FIFA currently ranks the team first among African nations going to Rio next week and it is also a fan favorite.
This is the Ivory Coast’s third time playing in the prestigious games. They have qualified for three consecutive Soccer World Cups, a quest that began in Germany in 2006 where this photo was snapped.
In 2006, the Elephants, as the Cote d’Ivoire team is known, failed to progress after being drawn in a group with Netherlands and Argentina.
The draw was equally unkind during the the 2010 edition, held for the first time on African soil, where Ivory Coast found themselves in a pool with Brazil and Portugal – notoriously known as the “Group of Death” for their killer soccer skills. The result was Ivory Coast failed to progress into the knockout stages of the competition in South Africa.
Hopefully Ivory Coast fares better next week. In Rio, they are in the relatively easy Group C, which is also comprised of Colombia, Japan and Greece.
Ivory Coast are bringing a wealth of talent to the 2014 Soccer World Cup where players like Yaya Touré, Wilfried Bony, Serge Aurier, Cheick Toité and Didier Drogba will all be aiming to help Africa’s number one ranked side progress to the Round of 16 in Brazil.
The Ivory Coast will play their first match on June 14 against Japan. The match is set to begin at 10pm local time. They play Colombia next in a 1pm match on June 19. Their third match is against Greece on June 24 at 5pm.
When it comes to penalty shoot-outs the Ivory Coast holds the record for the two highest-scoring penalty shoot-outs in international soccer competition history. At the 1992 Africa Cup they defeated Ghana 11-10 with 24-shots. It also took 24-shots to defeat Cameroon 12-11 in a similar style penalty shoot-out at the 2006 African Cup.
In 2008 coach Ulli Stielike left the team before the Africa cup to take care of his son, who was in poor health. As a result, one of the players, Didier Drogba, stepped up to the plate and acted as a player-coach. This was only the second time in African Cup history that a team member did double duty as a player and coach.
