Côte d’Ivoire surviving the World Cup group stage for the first time, in the year of our football gods 2026, is one of those titbits that sounds like it shouldn’t be true, and yet here we are. An underwhelming 2-0 victory over Curaçao, courtesy of Nicolas Pépé’s double, put the Ivorians through to the last 32 as Group E runners-up.
“Celebrate this historic qualification, like we should,” the Ivorian manager, Emerse Faé, told his compatriots afterwards. “Once we’re done celebrating, we want to go as far as possible in this competition. This is a young group. They’re all at their first ever World Cup. They’re playing well. There is a lot of solidarity in this group.”
