Drogba, Kalou tip Super Eagles for title

Ivory Coast captain Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou have tipped their conquerors, the Super Eagles, for the AFCON title after knocking the erstwhile tournament favourites out of the competition.

The former Chelsea duo praised the Nigeria team for their courage and display in Sunday’s quarter-final clash.

“I was very impressed with the Super Eagles’ performance against us (Ivory Coast). It’s proof of hard work, relentlessness and the sign of a world-class team in preparation,” Drogba said.

“I don’t really see any team that can withstand Nigeria for the rest of the tournament. They keep improving by each game and level of the competition.

“That shows it’s a hardworking and resilient outfit. If they must take the trophy home they have to keep working, be creative and challenge any side like they engaged us.

“Wishing for and seeing victory is not enough. I feel this is Nigeria time but they must deserve it by proving it more on the pitch. The fact that the team arrived with a number of home-based players means we have to give them praise because that tells us there is football even within the continent,” he said.

Kalou said, “Nigeria have a good chance at the tournament after the way they played against us.

“We also played a good game but we did not play in our usual way. We were forced to play long balls and that was not our style. We are shaper when we play between the lines. By the time we found out how strong Nigeria were, we were already behind them and we did not recover from that.”

Kalou said his side knew how the Super Eagles would approach the match but it was impossible to match their quality in the game.

“We expected that Nigeria would play with so much power and speed but we thought that we could still make the difference. It was a top game but we did well in the second half despite conceding the winner.”