French coach of the Ivory Coast national football team – Patrice Beaumelle – has spoken about his team’s 2-1 friendly victory over Burkina Faso last Saturday as the Elephants prepare to take on the Black Stars of Ghana for another match amical at the Cape Coast stadium.
The 2015 African champions won with goals from Ibrahima Sangare and Machester United wonderkid Amad Diallo but Ghana lost to Morocco.
When Beaumelle was asked about his analysis about this match against Burkina Faso. Below is what he said:
Burkina Faso had come with the intention of creating a lot of problems for us. I rediscovered the intensity of matches worthy of the African Cups where the two teams played one hundred percent. I was not surprised at the quality of this Burkina Faso team which, in its game, intended to come and take us from behind on counter-attacks.
I am satisfied once again with the state of mind of our players, especially young and new. Many players were at their first selection. It was a reshaped Ivory Coast team with many new players who put their hearts into it and who were rewarded for their individual and collective efforts. It’s a deserved victory because we kept playing with the intention of winning. We were rewarded by the efforts of a whole group.
It’s a collective victory and I want to congratulate the players. It gives us a lot of confidence for the future because we have a shoal depth. We must not forget that we ended the match with experienced players including Kessié Franck who has about fifty selections. The majority was between zero and four selections. Players who do not yet have the automatisms to play together. It seems to me that Burkina Faso had not lost for eight games. They had recorded five wins and three draws. They are not an easy team to play and they are rival teams.
