Ivory Coast look to bounce back

Ivory Coast will look to bounce back to winning form to round out their Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign when they host Group H rivals Lesotho at the Laurent Pokou Stadium in San Pedro on the evening of Saturday 9 September 2023.

Kick-off is at 6pm CAT.

Ivory Coast have safely secured a spot at next year’s Afcon as both hosts and guaranteed top-two finishers in this group, but they will have an itch to scratch in this clash, following a 3-0 humbling they received at the hands of leaders (and fellow guaranteed qualifiers) Zambia in Ndola back in June.

The Elephants need to begin finding a rhythm and consistency, with both World Cup qualifiers (in November) and the Afcon tournament (January-February of next year) looming large on the horizon.

French coach Jean-Louis Gasset will need a strong showing in both this clash and a follow-up friendly against Mali next midweek to underline his credentials as being worthy to lead the Afcon hosts.

“At every meeting, some players score points and others lose them, but it's true that in certain areas of the game we haven't found the solution,” he admitted, having named a squad which features such stars as Serge Aurier, Willy Boly, Franck Kessie, Maxwel Cornet and Sebastien Haller.

Lesotho, meanwhile, will finish bottom of the group regardless of the result of this match, having picked up just a single point from five matches thus far.

Likuena showed a great improvement under interim coach Leslie Notsi at the 2023 Cosafa Cup, where they ended as runners-up after a narrow defeat to Zambia in the final, and will hope to take that momentum into this clash against a true continental heavyweight.

In head-to-head stats, the only previous meeting between Ivory Coast and Lesotho was a 0-0 draw in their Matchday 2 qualifier played in Soweto, South Africa, in June 2022.