Ivory Coast the Elephants FIFA 2010
The 62-year-old former England and Mexico coach, who shot to fame during his tenure, is now heading the boys from Ivory Coast. Sven Goran Eriksson is training his players to perform well in the upcoming World cup, and the boys are reciprocating. They have thrown their whole weight behind their new coach, watching and listening to all his instructions and tactics carefully.
Eriksson is in the process of giving the players a crash course in the level of football that is played during the world cup.
Until 2005, their greatest accomplishment was winning the 1992 African Cup of Nations against Ghana on penalties in Dakar, Senegal. However, they have qualified for two World Cup finals, first in Germany in 2006, losing to Argentina and the Netherlands and beating Serbia and Montenegro but they failed to progress beyond the group stage.
The team is very happy with their new coach and believe that he can help them improve their performance. Despite the fact that Goran only took over charge last week, the boys from Ivory Coast feel they are progressing well in their training camps. And that is not all; Ivory Coast’s Kolo Toure has called Eriksson one of the best coaches and managers in the world. Not only that, Toure believes that even in a short span of time, Eriksson has managed to fathom the strengths and weaknesses of the players. That has got to help boost the confidence of the players that they are in safe hands.
Eriksson has formerly coached England and Mexico. He formally took over charge as the coach for Ivory Coast in March this year, giving him very little time to understand the boys and then start training them. He has also had very little time to strategically plan their moves before their group matches are due to begin. And time is something that Eriksson needs to whip out his magic as Ivory Coast has very daunting opponents in their group, in the shape of former champions Brazil and heavy weights Portugal.
Eriksson’s success rate at the World Cup has been dubious. And what is not a good omen for Ivory Coast is the fact that during the 1996 World cup, Portugal knocked out England, who at that time were being coached by Eriksson and what’s worse is that four years prior to that defeat, England were shown the door by Brazil. This time around too Eriksson’s boys will have to face the mighty Brazilians and the Portuguese, but the only difference is that it is in the group stages. Eriksson would not want history to repeat itself and that his boys pass these tests with flying colours.
Eriksson has a lot of talent in the team with which he can play around. Ivory Coast has the likes of brothers Toure and Yaya, Zokora, Saloman Kalou and Arsenal’s Emmanuel Adebayor. But one person that is their show stopper is Chelsea’s superstar Didier Drogba. Drogba’s strength can be measured in the fact that his 29 goals, which were the top score in league matches, won Chelsea the Premier League title this year. They snatched victory from the jaws of defending champions Manchester United and Drogba was the star. Eriksson would be looking towards Drogba to perform the same miracles during the World Cup.
Currently the team has grouped in Saanen for their training sessions. It is during this training that Eriksson will decide who makes it to the 23 man squad, as he has till June 1st to trim his squad. Eriksson would have a fair idea of which eleven players to start off with after Ivory Coast plays its friendly matches against France and Paraguay. Ivory Coast is due to play their first league match against Portugal on June 15th and then the big match against the Brazilians on June 20th. All eyes will be on Eriksson, who said his first goal was to reach the last 16 of the tournament. He has a tough job ahead of him, but he has players in his team who can do the job.
Ivory Coast have been drawn in World Cup Group G, alongside Brazil, Portugal and North Korea.
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