So much can change in seven days, as the Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire demonstrated on Monday, 29 January, after they came back from a goal down to beat defending champions Senegal 5-4 on penalties.
This comes exactly seven days after they were humiliated 4-0 by Equatorial Guinea and had to wait for Morocco to beat Zambia 1-0 to sneak through into the round of 16.
The Elephants lost their French coach, Jean-Louis Gasset on Thursday and had Emerse Fae installed when the France Football Federation declined their request for a loan for their former manager, Herve Renard.
Fae decided to bring back some old heads to steady the ship. Jean-Michael Seri and Max Gradel came on for their first starts, but the Teranga Lions were ahead within four minutes. Habib Diallo controlled a cross from Sadio Mane on his chest before lashing home with a left-footed shot.
Mane was lucky not to get a red card for a high challenge on Ibrahim Sangaré in the ninth minute. It was a surprise there was no VAR review, but that incident sparked the Elephants into life, and they started pushing the Teranga Lions back.
The hosts kept pushing, and a roar went up when Sébastien Haller came on in the 72nd minute. And they finally pushed the Senegalese door down in the 85th minute when Edouard Mendy sent substitute Nicolas Pepe tumbling.
Gabonese referee Pierre Ghislain Atcho ruled for a corner kick, but VAR called for a review, from which he awarded a penalty. Substitute Franck Kessie sent Mindy the wrong way to revive the hosts’ ambition to go further.
Extra time could not separate them, and in the lottery of penalty kicks, it was only Senegalese defender Moussa Niakhaté who lost his nerve among the 10 penalty takers to send Cote d’Ivoire into the quarterfinals, where they will take on Mali or Burkina Faso at the Stade de la Paix in Bouake.
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In the first match of the day, Cape Verde booked their second-ever quarterfinal trip after they defeated Mauritania 1-0, courtesy of an 88th-minute penalty from Ryan Mendes.
Their prize is a duel against either Morocco or South Africa, who meet on Tuesday.
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