Time for Cote D’Ivoire’s golden generation to top off their brilliance with an Afcon title

Cote D’Ivoire as a nation has been extremely proud of its abundance of football stars, who have successfully propelled the country’s cultural heritage to the far world and fostered national unity, even during periods of fierce crisis.

Although its first and only continental title was clinched by the 1992 team, the current generation of footballers, led by the talismanic Didier Drogba, remains the best to have come from the west African nation, which now boasts a hundred professionals plying their trade in Europe and beyond, as opposed to a dozen players adventuring timidly in unpopular European leagues a few years back.

One of Africa's best | Didier Drogba needs an Afcon title to enrich his career

The Elephants have been well-represented in the English Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga, which was brought to perfection when Yaya Toure, then in Barcelona, became the first Ivorian player to win the world’s most coveted football club title – the Uefa Champions League – in 2009.

The national hero was given a rousing welcome by thousands of locals at the airport followed by a red carpet reception at the presidential palace when he, accompanied by a couple of Barcelona staff and big brother Kolo Toure, brought the Uefa Champions League trophy on tour to Abidjan.

The 2010 Africa Cup of Nations was only a few months away at the time, and many local fans were rehearsing the same songs and dance steps used when they greeted Yaya Toure with belief in an almost certain victory of the Elephants in Angola. But when the time came the songs they sang were wailing tunes, following the brutal elimination of their team from the competition by Algeria in the quarter-finals, reminiscent of the repetitive setbacks in the two previous editions.

Cote D'Ivoire star | Gervinho is expected to shine at the Afcon

The highest ranked national team on the continent have performed badly in their two World Cup expeditions (2006, 2010), leaving behind a disappointing record for themselves until now. For sure, they are talented, experienced and brave, but they are yet to win anything of value to show their people, who now seem weary of waiting for that joyful moment and once again hanging their hopes on Drogba & Co.

With the absence of Egypt, Cameroon and Nigeria at the 2012 Afcon, Cote D’Ivoire’s path to victory appears less stony than in previous editions, but the presence of teams like Ghana, Morocco and Senegal, as well as a surprise package or two, are likely to turn the showpiece into a real and usual battlefield with no outright favourite.

However, the Ivorian players are paying attention to the omens of a mandatory success in the forthcoming tournament, which may drift further from their hold by 2013 when the big guns will likely return and when some members of the Elephants will bow out due to tired legs and dejection.

Therefore, now is the time to be victorious!

A nation holds their breath | The Elephants are expected to win the 2012 Afcon

Tactically, the Ivorian outfit still possesses enough potential to challenge and conquer a number of teams coming to Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, but if the team's issues of the past are yet to be diagnosed and addressed, fans will be disappointed once again, but this time with unkind words for the coach and his men, who will be remembered by history as nearly-men.

Skill, hard work, fighting spirit and concentration might wobble without unity within the set up, which is becoming a chief prerequisite for the Elephants’ long sought-after Afcon success, but the month of February will reveal the fate of the mighty Ivorians.