Elephants 3 – Mali 0

January 29th, 2008 | by: gianfranco | Comments(4)

Nine minutes into the match Didier Drogba made a stamp on the group stage of the African Cup of Nations, scoring the sixth goal of the tournament for the Ivorians, and the only goal needed to defeat upstarts Mali. But the elephants did not stop there, they added two more goals one from Marko Zoro and another from Constant Djakpa to take a 3 goal victory.

With three dominating performances the Ivory Coast is easily the strongest team going into the knockout stages and is a sure favorite to work their way into the final. The group stage has the key points of the Elephants:

1. Drogba is here, healthy, and wants to establish himself as the best African Footballer. He has also proven extremely valuable as a leader, even assisting interim coach Gerard Gili as an assistant and on field general. Anyone who questioned his health, desire, or ability can politely shove it.

2. The loss of Uli Stielke only gilded a team that is playing with a desire to win. The team who was a close knit group as it was, but as the tournament has rolled on this team has gotten stronger putting dominant offense performances scoring goals seemingly at will.

3. Everyone knew this team had firepower in the attack but was has really been the story is the fact that have given up only one goal, and that goal was to Benin in the 89th minute of a match that was already sealed. Who would have that Boubacar Barry, BOUBACAR BARRY, would have one of the best save percentages in the African Cup of Nations. Everyone on this team has come to play.