Cote d’Ivoire vs Guinea - Africa Cup of Nations Quarterfinal LiveBlog

It’s Cote d’Ivoire (or Ivory Coast, if your prefer) vs Guinea in our second Africa Cup of Nations quarterfinal.

Cote d’Ivoire 5-0 Guinea

Kader Keita 24′
Drogba 70′
Kalou 72′, 82′
B. Kone 85′


Quarterfinal
Date: Sunday, February 3rd
Kick-off: 2030 GMT (1530 EST)
Venue: Essipong Sports Stadium, Sekondi

- Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting, it’s been another good day of Africa Cup of Nations football if you ask me. WCB Man of the Match: Didier Drogba, when things were tight at 1-0 the Cote d’Ivoire captain scored the second and made the third. Different class.

FULL-TIME The ref blows before things get out of hand and Guinea’s misery is over. 5-0 and a powerful performance from Cote d’Ivoire, so now we know who two of our semi-finalists are.

90+ Ibrahima Camara floors Baki Kone and gets a yellow card, but wants to continue the argument with Kone afterwards.

89′ Pascal Feindouno can only look on and rub his beard. Three minutes of stoppage time (or misery time, if you’re a Guinea fan) to go.

85′ ANOTHER ELEPHANTS GOAL Baki Kone makes it five. He gets it at the top of the D thingy and absolutely smashes it into the top right corner. 5-0. For the record 5-0 is still a thrashing, but one more and we move into a spanking.

81′ ONE MORE GOAL! Toure squares it for the unmarked Kalou to smash home. 4-0. And as we all know, it’s a scientific fact that 4-0 is where it moves from a defeat to a thrashing (ie Guinea were defeated 3-0 becomes Guinea were thrashed 4-0.)

77′ Aroun Kone cross for Kalou, who draws a great save from Camara’s left knee. Not sure how aware the rest of Camara was of it though.

74′ Drogba comes off for a well earned break after destroying Guinea’s dreams. Baki Kone replaces him.

72′ ANOTHER GOAL! Drogba slips Kalou through with a smart little pass, Kalou goes past Camara then walks the ball to the line… and waits… before tapping it in. Game over, man, game over.

70′ GOAL!! Dindane can rest easy as Drogba shows him how it’s done. A one-two with Boka, a surge away from the last defender and then Drogba places it in the corner as Camara advances. 2-0 and very likely that’s the game.

69′ Aruna Dindane fluffs a chance to put this game to bed. He latches onto a through ball, niftily pokes it around the keeper but then misses the open goal. If Cote d’Ivoire fail to win this game Dindane will be haunted by that forever.

67′ Mansare lazily lifts a shot over the bar with his left foot. Maybe he was thinking about the Superbowl and went for three points?

65′ Cote d’Ivoire seem happy to let Guinea come at them. Bangoura and Mansare still look lively enough for Cote d’Ivoire to regret doing so, but everyone else looks dog tired.

61′ That was more like it. Bangour rolls it through the legs of Mansare and Jaidi shoots when it comes out the other side. It’s literally just inches wide of the post and close enough to cause Barry to dive head first into his own post. Ouch. He gets a bit of treatment.

60′ Mansare wins a free kick right on the edge of the area by making the most of an Eboue tackle.

59′ Guinea make a change. Youla off, Karamoko Cisse on.

54 Kalou gets a header from a corner but knocks it wide. Not really his strength to be fair. Though I can’t help looking at Salamon Kalou in an Ivory Coast jersey and remembering how hard he tried to play for Holland in 2006. Hmm.

47′ Jadi whips in a cross from the right that bounces twice in the six yard box without anyone touching it. Ismael Bangoura finally gets it at the far post but shoots almost straight up in the air. Maybe that works in the Ukrainian league, but not here in Ghana.

45′ Second half is go.

HALF-TIME The whistle stops the action just as it was getting good. 1-0 to Cote d’Ivoire at the break, and I suspect there may be more goals to come from them when we resume.

45+ More action! The coffee has been swapped for Red Bull (or similar) as Keita flicks a pass inside, the ball is worked to Drogba and Double D curls one towards the top right corner, drawing a salmon-like save from Camara.

45′ Then Keita goes up the other end and tries another shot from a wide angle which only just goes wide of the far post. Now we’re wide awake, had a shower and we’re downing a cup of coffee.

44′ And then Bangoura slaloms around some defenders and hits a daisy cutter that Barry saves. Now we’re wide awake.

42′ Camara saves once from Dindane, then Zayette blocks Kalou, then Camara saves a second attempt from Dindane. This game has woken up.

39′ Quick shot of Pascal Feindouno watching from the stands. He has to be regretting that kick against Morocco right about now.

34′ Drogba back in. Let’s hope he’s OK, would be a shame if he disappeared form the tournament.

33′ Uh oh. Drogba hops off the field for treatment. Could that be his recently surgeried knee that’s taken a knock?

30′ Guinea try a rehearsed move from a free-kick but it all goes wring. The plan seemed to be for Mansare to step over then backheelk for Jadi to shoot, but Salomon Kalou read it like a book and got in the way.

24′ GOAL! Abdul Kader Keita got down the right flank but instead of crossing like most would, Keita went for the shot from the narrow angle. Camara was surprised and the ball went in. 1-0 Ivory Coast.

23′ Just to prove me right, young Bah gets a vicously swervy shot at Barry. Unfortunately for Guinea it viscously swerves right into Barry’s hands.

22′ So far so good for Guinea though. They’re holding out and despite Cote d’Ivoire’s better possession the chances created are more or less equal.

19′ Romaric’s far post delivery from the free kick finds Dindane, but he heads wide. This feels like Ivory Coast’s game for the taking, especially of Romaric keeps pinging crosses, free kicks, corners and passes around like a peak of his career David Beckham.

18′ Zayatte gets a booking for a late tackle on Kalou.

15′ Just as Ivory Coast were gaining the upperhand, Mansare gets down the left and fires in a near post cross. Only just intercepted by Meite, or else Youal would (probably) have scored.

13′ Keita dribbles from halfway, all the way down the right flank and then into the area. Gets a shot away but it’s blocked. Keita wears a great expression while dribbling, with eyebrows raised as if even he doesn’t know what’s coming.

12′ Keita very very nearly finds Drogab witha cross, but Zayetta intercepts. Still good enough to draw a short round of applause from Drogba though.

- Not as much action as the Ghana vs Nigeria game (which pretty much lived up to all the hype earlier today) but I can say that I want to buy a whole Guinea kit. The shirt is perfectly nice on its own, but the red shirt, yellow shorts, green socks combo is something else.

5′ Mansare gets past Keita, lets him catch up, then beats him again to get a cross in. Mansare will be dangerous down the left. Guinea’s hopes have to lie with the front three of Mansare, Bangoura and Youla.

1′ Cote d’Ivoire off to a quick start, as Dindane nearly finds Kalou. I’m planning to switch back and forth between the English and French spelling. The nation has officially asked everyone to exclusively use the French, but most English speakers perhaps understandably still use English. We’ll try and please both by using whatever happens to come out when the typing starts.

0′ We have kick off.

-There was a solemn minutes silence in memory of former Ivory Coast coach Uli Stileke’s son, who passed away very recently. Nice touch by the players.

-Lineups

Ivory Coast: Barry, Boka, Eboue, Meite, Romaric, Yaya Toure, Zokora, Dindane, Drogba, Kalou, Keita

Guinea: Kemoko Camara, Ibrahima Camara, Diallo, Jabi, Zayatte, Bah, Bangoura, Johnson, Mansare, Sacko, Soulemane Youla

- Teams are out and lined up for the national anthem. Ivory Coast all in white, Guinea with red shirts, yellow shorts, green socks.

- More bad news for Guinea. Bobo Balde is out injured. That’s the second captain Guinea have lost. I don’t envy whoever is replacing Balde in central defence, as he’ll be facing Mr. Didier Drogba.

Scout Report - Cote d’Ivoire

Ivory Coast will likely be missing Kolo Toure, who’s still struggling with the injury sustained against Benin in the second Group B game. Marc Zoro replaced Toure against Mali and capped a fine performance by scoring, so will expect to keep his place. Elsewhere, Ivory Coast have the usual suspects to striker fear into Guinea fans. Didier Drogba has been looking his magnificent self, Salomon Kalou is coming into his own, Abdul Kader Keita always looks dangerous, while Didier Zokora and Yaya Toure look assured in midfield. They will expect to win, so Guinea’s best chance lies in hoping the Elpehants understimate the Syli Nationale.

Scout Report - Guinea

Syli Nationale coach Robert Nouzaret will be familiar with Cote d’Ivoire, having had two spells in charge of the Elephants in recent years. But juts because you know Didier Drogba is unstoppable, that doesn’t really help you work out how to stop him. The bigger problem for Guinea is that the whole gameplan is built around captain and playmaker Pascal Feindouno and he’s still suspended for his ill-advised kicking of a Moroccan player during Guinea’s 3-2 win.

But there’s still talent. Going forward there’s Soulemane Youla, Fode Mansare and Ismael Bangoura, all quality strikers. At the back there’s Celtic’s Bobo Balde. It’s just a shame that the man who connects all the dots together in midfield will be missing.

Team Blogs: Visit Gianfranco at the Cote d’Ivoire Blog.

Watching Streams Online:

http://www.myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=5746&part=sports
http://livefooty.doctor-serv.com/sun3.2/CoteDIvoire_Guinea.html
http://livefooty.doctor-serv.com/sun3.2/CoteDIvoire_Guinea2.html

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