The home team’s triumph arrived without a coach and came close to finishing several times.
Attending the final between Nigeria and Ivory Coast, the final act of the competition, with all the political and social implications that it involuntarily brings with it and enjoying the spectacle was refreshing for the eyes and the mind, hoping that nothing could ever change the wonderful mysticism of Coppa d’Africa.
A tournament like the biggest one on the African continent has always been a source of great debate and discontent. Obviously only in Europe, here where people complain about the departures of footballers, where they pushed for a summer tournament – as this edition was also theoretically conceived – which will be played next year in Morocco despite the obvious impact that the torrid climate will have first and foremost on the bodies of the players as well as on the spectators: in Marrakech the maximum average in July is 37°.
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In Africa, obviously, the Cup is experienced with a completely different spirit. The Africa Cup of Nations is a conscious distraction and at the same time a moment of human, sporting, social and political redemption. The result itself matters, but that’s not all. Simply, we want to be in the Africa Cup of Nations, you want to participate. We want to experience the sense of unity between peoples in the paradox of a tournament which is the direct consequence of lines drawn by some anonymous European cartographer.
The same Europe that has always colonized, plundered and redesigned the continent to its liking and is not satisfied with the slave trade proposes the same dynamics with young footballers. Clearly it’s not just this. There is also a political context too often tumultuous, uncertain, brutal: a ring in which the feuds of local potentates are fought. This endemic fragility has always led to the impoverishment of the social fabric of many countries. We know the consequences well: suffering and mass migration, or – too often – deserts, Libyan concentration camps, shipwrecks and great profits for the mafias.
However, once again, it’s not just that. There are not only distortions in this hypnotic continent. Mention the great people (think of Mandela, Makeba, Sankara to name three known to all) and the great social, cultural and artistic events (from decolonization to the Arab Spring, from Dak’art al Gnaoua World Music Festival of Essaouira) is obviously reductive and redundant in a venue like this. Suffice it to say this magmatic mass has often seen birth blinding beauty and purity which has radiated across the planet making it a much better place.
It is possible, on the other hand, to render this immensity, not only geographical in spite of the Eurocentric maps, by transposing it into football and its most illustrious interpreters such as Eto’o o Drogbacome Adebayor o Mané or, going further back, the various ones Weah, Milla o Coach. Or, it can be celebrated through its strongest and most iconic national teams: the Cameroon of Italia ’90, of the dance that will change celebrations forever; there Nigeria of USA ’94, with that splendid shirt and a starting eleven of pure technique, the Morocco of Qatar ’22, archetype of the childhood dream of anyone who has trod the dust or the asphalt of the city, or Zaire from ’74 e that escape from the barrier to kick away an opponent’s free kick, an excellent synthesis of football as the only megaphone to shout the terror of oppression to the world.
Beauty, therefore. The Africa Cup of Nations is also and above all beautiful. Just as beautiful was Sunday’s final between Ivory Coast e Nigeria. Especially beautiful on the pitch, where we admired much of the best that the continent had to offer – first and foremost OshimenLookman e Chukwueze da una parte, KessieFofana, Adingra e Haller on the other. Also very beautiful in the stands: splendid cheering, as always, and splendid facilities.
Lo Ouattara stadiumwhere the final was held, is a facility that today, in Italy, we can only dream of (let’s leave aside, for the moment, the issue of construction methods, respect for workers’ rights, safety and also the controversial figure of president to whom it is named). The match itself was the mirror of this beauty. A match not always beautiful, but always exciting, full of technical gestures and culminating with the climax of Sébastien Haller’s 2-1 finale.
The story of Sébastien Romain Teddy Haller, certainly the most loved man in the Ivory Coast this week, is very well known and paradigmatic from many points of view. The choice, made in 2020, to play for the Elephants rather than for France – where he was born and raised and with whom he went through the entire youth national team – to pay homage to his mother and his origins, intersecting the colonial question with football and post-colonial; the terrible disease diagnosed in 2022, at the peak of her career, and the concrete risk that everything, but one’s own everything could end; the difficult return to the field six months later; an unlucky year, still without a goal against BVB; finally, that slight twisting of the ankle, a little to the Ibra, that light touch with the outside and the roar of the stadium.
L’mystical intertwining of this path bumpy and disconnected, similar to that of the Ivory Coast itself during this month of the Africa Cup of Nations sublimates a well-deserved victory.
Before reaching the end, in fact, the path of the oranges it had been tortuous to say the least: group (with Nigeria) almost miraculously passed as the last of the best third-placed teams; exemption of CT Gasset; in the round of 16 with Senegal they passed on penalties, after having caught one back with five to go game played “from ghosts” and quarters against Mali won thanks to a 1-1 scored in the ninety minute and a 2-1 in the one hundred and twentieth minute. Nonetheless, from game to game (especially after Gasset’s departure) the team took shapeon the pitch and inside the heads of players and staff.
Adingra has found more and more space, Haller has returned to form from injury, Breathing he started to dominate in midfield and everyone really convinced themselves that they could do it. With reason.
In contrast, Nigeria had reached the final with a schooling. Group A passed without worries, even if in second place on goal difference, thanks to the 0-4 defeat by Equatorial Guinea against the hosts. Round of 16 and quarters against Cameroon e Angola won rather easily 2-0 and 1-0 respectively and only one bad scare, with the Sud Africa in the semi-final, beaten on penalties after having seriously risked suffering the upset in injury time after the equaliser Mokoena to the ninetieth.
However, unlike Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria had never convinced either in spirit or in play. The tactical mechanisms have always seemed poorly functioning and, despite the abundance of offensive talent, José Peseiro has always focused on a low center of gravity and to a very cautious approach. Even in the final, in fact, the Eagles they did not give what they could, or what they promised. Many players seemed tired, unmotivated, thrown haphazardly onto the pitch and almost crushed by the public roar that incessantly supported their opponents. Really too little for a team of this caliber.
Yet, Nigeria had taken the lead in the 38th minute, with yet another goal from the captain Troost-Ekong (who had already scored against the Ivorians in the group stage) in the only offensive action of the first half. From the goal onwards, however, the greens are back disappeared for a long time from the opponent’s half of the field, limiting themselves to trying to keep the orange tide in order. In the stands, the astonished expression of Didier Drogbasomeone who knows very well what it means to lose the Africa Cup of Nations final, spoke for himself.
Fears of witch curses they meandered through the spectators, but the Nigerian resistance didn’t last long and Kessié equalized in the 62nd minute. For the rest of the match, the script remained the same: Ivory Coast regularly penetrating the – very wide – Nigerian lines, creating consistently numerical superiority on three quarters. Nigeria never climbed, offering their opponents a static and flat defence, often exposed from the midfield.
Sebastian Haller. The goal of the tournament? 🇨🇮⚽️#AFCON2023 pic.twitter.com/H8eZDCzOJm
— BabaGol (@BabaGol_) February 11, 2024
Overlays, constant movement and ball on the ground, these were the simple but effective tactical measures of the Ivory Coast, different and more accomplished than the one seen on the pitch in previous matches. For its part, Nigeria tried, in spurts long balls, hoping for Osimhen’s head and his fast combinations with Chukwueze and Lookman. Which, however, were seen very little in this final despite the great fighting game from the Napoli center forward. Not only to their demerit, but also thanks to an Ivorian defense practically flawless.
Frankly, much more was expected tactically and technically from a national team with Nigeria’s potential, we will see if Peseiro is confirmed. In any case, at this point in the article the concept should be clear: Ivory Coast deserved to win the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations and the fact that he did it in front of his audience, in these ways and generating such a quantity of linee narrative it’s just the icing on the cake.
We need to let ourselves be hypnotized more and more often by these competitions – for we – peripherals to forget the human and social distortion that grips our football world to which, however, we are religiously linked and therefore we are often unable (or do not want) to see.