With a total value of 320 million euros, why did the luxurious Côte d'Ivoire not qualify for the World Cup?

In the early morning of March 26, Beijing time, the Ivorian team visited the Stade de France, the whole game between the two sides of the back and forth, and finally the French team won 2-1 with joan Ameni's header in the stoppage time stage. The starting line-up, which featured the "African Elephants" of Alai, Pepe, Zaha and Casey, threatened Lowry's conservative city gates on multiple counter-attacks, and they almost drew with France at Saint-Denis.

Ivorian coach Bomer from France said after the game: "We came to the game with the best mental outlook, we deserved a draw, the team showed a good quality, proved that we can compete with the top teams. This team has a soul and we saw that again tonight. ”

On this national team match day, Africa's top teams are participating in the third stage of the World Preliminary Tournament in Africa to compete for the final ticket to the World Cup, but why is Côte d'Ivoire, which has a luxurious lineup at the African level, out?

320 million euros, the total value of Africa's second

Let's take a look at how many well-known players this Ivory Coast team has. The number of players worth more than 10 million euros has reached 11, including Alai, who has scored 20 goals in the Dutch League and 11 goals in the Champions League this season, and his value has reached 30 million. And wingers like Pepe and Zaha are the source of threat for this team. In midfield, AC Milan core Casey and Eindhoven defender Sangaray, both of whom provided enough hardness for the team. Wolves centre-back Bolly, Manchester United centre-back Bailey and Villarreal full-back Ollie are not the most expensive players in the team's backline, Bayer Leverkusen centre-back Audron Corsonu is no. 1 in the team with 20 million euros, and at just 21 years old, he is already an indispensable semi-main player for Bayer Leverkusen this season.

In addition, the Ivory Coast squad also has Sassuolo's forward Hamid Traore, Atalanta striker Boga, Burnley striker Corne, who has scored six goals in the Premier League this season, former Chinese Super League Wuhan and SIPG foreign aid Evra, Real Betis midfielder Akuri, Reims full-back Conan and Turin full-back Singo and many other players of great strength.

Such a squad is really the top match at the African level, and on the German transfer market network, the total value of the Ivorian team is as high as 320 million euros, ranking second in Africa, only 10 million less than the first Senegal. It can be said that Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire are currently the two most powerful teams on paper in Africa.

Across Africa, there are 10 teams worth more than 100 million euros, and 8 of these 10 teams are competing in the third stage of the World Preliminary Round in Africa, except for Côte d'Ivoire in the second place and Guinea in the 10th.

Guinea itself is not very strong, and the biggest stars are only Ligue 1 promotion Marclaymond striker Bayo and Rennes forward Gilasi, and it is reasonable that they did not advance to the third stage. However, it seems puzzling that Côte d'Ivoire, which is worth more than the last two African Cup of Nations champions Egypt and Algeria combined, has not made it to the final stages of the World Cup of Preliminaries.

and Cameroon were placed in the death squad

In the second stage of the African Zone of the World Preliminary Round, 40 teams were divided into 10 groups, and the top of each group could participate in the third stage of the competition. The luck of Côte d'Ivoire is too bad, they are currently in the same group as Cameroon, the "African Lion" ranked 6th on this continent, which is the most competitive group in the 10 groups, because both Ivorian and Cameroon teams have the strength to participate in the World Cup and even reach the knockout rounds.

However, the ambitious Ivory Coast was out of the blue in the first round of the second stage. On September 3 last year, facing Mozambique, which was far less powerful than themselves, they scored only one point at 0-0. Four days later, facing rival Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire won a valuable 2-1 victory with Alai's second-half victory, taking the qualifying power into their own hands.

In the following matches, the elephants and lions both won, the last two teams ushered in a life-and-death battle, the game was drawn to qualify Côte d'Ivoire, in the scene and the first leg was also equal to the opponent, but this time The goddess of luck did not side with them, and finally Cameroon defeated Côte d'Ivoire with a goal from Lyon striker Ecmbi and advanced to the third round.

If you want to qualify for the World Cup, you must be in a favorable place, but the signing of Côte d'Ivoire in the past two years has not been very good, such as this year's Africa Cup, they are in the same group as the defending champion Algeria, although the final round of victory over the "Desert Fox" to reach the knockout round, but in the 1/8 final they met Egypt, who won the championship later, and was missed by Manchester United centre-back Bailey in the penalty shootout, Salah made up his mind.

However, Côte d'Ivoire, which has a strong player in Ligue 1 and the Premier League, is certainly not convincing that the loss is always due to poor signings, and this team with great potential has not really cashed in on its strength at the competitive level.

They are divided and lack the core of the field

In this friendly match between Côte d'Ivoire and France, although Côte d'Ivoire, led by Pepe and Zaha, fought back and played well, and In the midfield, Casey and Sangaray did not lose the wind in the fight with Pogba and Mea arjuni, the strongest feeling of this team is that the play is too scattered, the players in the front court are all fighting for each other, and there is no overall rhythm and coordination output.

So, you'll see Alai, who has performed extremely well in the Champions League and the Eredivisie this season, on the pitch like a stealth man, a centre-forward who needs to be fed by his teammates, and he can't play his role without his teammates making a wedding dress for him, so in the 84 minutes of playing time, you see Alai's shots on goal: 0.

Alai + Pepe + Zaha looks like the best trident that this Ivory Coast can discharge, but the match against the French is only the second time that these three have started at the same time, so it is understandable that Pepe and Zaha will look at Alai on the field.

During the second round of the World Preliminary Round, only Alai was the main player of the team, while during the African Cup of Nations Zaha appeared more as a substitute, and even in the two most crucial games of the second stage of the World Preliminary Round in November last year, Zaha was not selected for the team's squad.

Manager Boleme said in an interview: "It was Zaha himself who asked for it, because every time he came to the national team, he added up, he was thinking about his future on the international stage. ”

So they lost the game against Cameroon, and zaha chose to watch from the sidelines in such a crucial game, and the cohesion of this team is worrying.

At the end of the 19th century, Côte d'Ivoire became a French colony, and today Côte d'Ivoire has deep roots with France, and French is also their official language. Most of the players of the Ivorian national team did not grow up in Côte d'Ivoire, either as a childhood immigrant to Europe, or as a second generation of immigrants, or grew up in France with parents from Côte d'Ivoire.

Midfielder Sangaray was born in Côte d'Ivoire but joined the Ligue 1 Academy of Toulouse at the age of 9; the captain of the team, Orières, was born in Côte d'Ivoire, but he immigrated to France with his parents at a very young age; Alai was born in Paris, France, his mother is Ivorian, he and Corne have played for the French youth team; Pepe was born in France, his parents are of Ivorian descent; Bailey was born in Côte d'Ivoire and grew up under the Ivorian youth system. He traveled to Spain at the age of 17; Casey had a similar experience with Bailey, who was also native to Côte d'Ivoire and was dug up to Italy by Atlanta at the age of 19.

Zaha's situation is a little different from the other main players, he immigrated to England with his family at the age of four, not to France, so his French may not be so good compared to other players, and perhaps there will be some problems in communicating with other players.

So from the growing environment, the main team is divided into minutes: Ivorian, French and English.

Among them, Zaha is the loneliest.

Zaha, the team's strongest overall strength at present, chose the Ivorian national team at the invitation of Drogba that year, with a sweet start, scoring his debut goal in the second game for the national team six years ago, and then against Russia, he staged a wonderful goal with 4 consecutive people. However, in the past few years under manager Boleme, on the one hand, Zaha feels that he is not reused, on the other hand, he also lacks friends in the national team, which makes him unable to show his full strength in the national team.

It's reminiscent of Zaha's on-field brawl with teammate Ravel Morrison in England's U21 vs. Lithuania in 2013, and jordan Henderson's reprimand to Zaha at half-time in England's friendly against Israel.

Zaha once had an unhappy past with the England national team, but he is now completely focused on the Ivory Coast national team. Zaha vehemently denied boss Bolemet's remarks about reconsidering the future of the national team in November, expressing his love for and support for the Ivorian national team, and his relationship with Boleme has been gradually repaired.

Although Côte d'Ivoire did not qualify for this year's World Cup, the core players who are still young at the core are still likely to participate in the next expanded World Cup.

After the game, Lowry said it was difficult for him to understand that such a talented team as Côte d'Ivoire could not participate in the World Cup, and Boleme said that he hoped that he would gradually improve the team's ability to deal with details by working with the players.

Côte d'Ivoire, once led by Drogba and Yaya Trey, have impressed us at the World Cup and the African Cup of Nations, and now that they once again have a group of talented people, we have reason to believe that they will be reborn in the trough. (Supine Braces/Qiu Yixi)