Ivory Coast have the squad for a deep World Cup run, but their AFCON exit is a warning
One of the most gifted squads in Africa, a coach who has already won a major trophy, and a kind draw. So why does a deep run for the Elephants still feel like a gamble?
Jun 12, 2026
Ivory Coast arrive at their first World Cup in 12 years with one of the deepest squads Africa is sending to North America. Look at the names and a run into the knockout rounds feels not just possible but overdue. Then you remember how their last tournament ended, and the certainty drains away. The Elephants are the most intriguing African side at this World Cup precisely because both of those things are true at once.
The case for the Elephants
Start with the players, because that is where the optimism lives. The spine is genuinely top class. Ousmane Diomande, Evan Ndicka and Wilfried Singo form a back line drawn from Sporting, Roma and Galatasaray. Franck Kessie, who built his name at AC Milan and Barcelona, still sets the tempo in midfield alongside Ibrahim Sangare and Jean Seri. And in attack there is Amad Diallo, fresh off the best club season of his Manchester United career and the man who top-scored for Ivory Coast at the last Africa Cup of Nations, with Nicolas Pepe and the emerging Yan Diomande around him. This is not a team scraping into the finals to make up the numbers.
The qualifying record backs that up. Ivory Coast came through their CAF group unbeaten, eight wins and two draws from 10 games, and did not concede a single goal along the way. Emerse Fae, the coach who took charge midway through the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations on home soil and somehow steered a stumbling host nation all the way to the title, has been clear about the target: he wants a first knockout-stage appearance in the country’s World Cup history, and he thinks getting out of the group is realistic. With this group of players, he is not wrong to.
The case for keeping the expectations in check
Here is the part that nags at me. Ivory Coast are not the reigning African champions, whatever their pedigree suggests. They won the 2023 title, staged at home in early 2024, but went to the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco as holders and fell in the quarter-finals to Egypt. For all the individual quality, a side that cannot defend a continental crown is not an obvious bet to go deep at a World Cup. There is history here too. Ivory Coast have reached the finals three times before, across 2006, 2010 and 2014, and never once climbed out of the group, often with squads every bit as gifted as this one.
Where I land
Group E gives them a road. Germany are the clear favourites and probably untouchable for top spot, but Ecuador, who they meet first in Philadelphia on 14 June, and the debutants Curacao are sides Ivory Coast should expect to take points off. Second place is there to be won. I would back the Elephants to finally reach the knockout stage, if only because the format now sends 32 of 48 teams through and this squad is too good to trip over that bar. What I am not ready to do is call them dark horses for the latter stages. The talent says one thing, the last 18 months say another, and until Ivory Coast prove they can win the matches that matter when the pressure is real, the caution stays.