Africa Cup of Nations hosts Ivory Coast will be looking to build on their opening-day victory and book a place in the knockout stages when they take on Nigeria at the Olympic Stadium of Ebimpé on Thursday.
Off the back of a 1-1 opening-day draw against Equatorial Guinea, the Super Eagles will head into the game looking to recover from their disappointing start and get their quest for continental glory back on track.
Ivory Coast kicked off the 34th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations as they would have hoped as they picked up a comfortable 2-0 victory over Guinea-Bissau last Saturday.
Al Nasr man Seko Fofana gave the hosts a dream start to the game as he curled home the opener inside the opening four minutes before Jean-Philippe Krasso put the result beyond doubt with a 58th-minute effort.
Jean-Louis Gasset’s men have now gone seven consecutive games without defeat across all competitions, including four wins on the bounce since a 1-1 friendly draw against South Africa back in October.
This fine run of results has also seen Les Elephants pick up two wins in their two World Cup qualifying games as they hammered Seychelles 9-0 on November 17 before claiming a 2-0 victory over Gambia in Dar es Salaam.
Firing on all cylinders and with the backing of their home supporters, Ivory Coast now set out to pick up successive wins in their opening two games at the AFCON finals for the first time since 2013, when they edged out Togo and Tunisia before playing out a 2-2 draw with Algeria.
Incidentally, Nigeria won the title back in 2013, when they finished as runners-up in Group C before going all the way to the final, where they claimed a narrow 1-0 victory over Burkina Faso at the First National Bank Stadium.
Ivory Coast vs Nigeria Head-to-Head
This will be Ivory Coast and Nigeria’s seventh meeting at the Africa Cup of Nations. As things stand, they can’t be separated. Of their six games for far, they have won two each and drawn two, scoring five goals each.
Their last AFCON meeting was in 2013. Nigeria won 2-1 in the quarter-finals and went on to lift the trophy.
The three previous meetings between Ivory Coast and Nigeria in the group stage of the tournament have produced only two goals (0-0 in 1980, 1-0 to Nigeria in 1990, 1-0 to Ivory Coast in 2008).