Fae hails Ivory Coast's World Cup intent after late Amad winner sinks Ecuador

PHILADELPHIA: Manager Emerse Fae said Ivory Coast’s 1-0 victory over Ecuador showed his young side’s World Cup ambitions are genuine, after substitute Amad Diallo’s 90th-minute winner secured a winning start to their campaign on Sunday.

The Ivorians have impressed since booking their place at the finals in the United States, Canada and Mexico, following comfortable warm-up wins over South Korea and Scotland in March and a 2-1 victory away to France last week.

Fae’s youthful attack, including highly rated 19-year-old winger Yan Diomande, was tested by an experienced Ecuadorean defence featuring Paris St Germain’s Willian Pacho and Arsenal’s Piero Hincapie, shielded by Chelsea midfielder Moises Caicedo.

“We came to the US for this, and we came here with ambitions, with high hopes,” Fae told reporters. “We don’t want to just have visited the US and have to go back, so everything is going well for now.

“We’ve beaten France. We are starting this competition well against Ecuador, a very tough team, but we managed to come into our own and won the match.

This shows that our team has acquitted itself well.“

With four-times champions Germany favourites in the group, this match could prove decisive in the battle for second place.

Germany thrashed debutants Curacao 7-1 in the other group game in Houston and will face Ivory Coast next in Toronto on Saturday.

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“It will be a difficult match again,” Fae added. “It’s Germany. They have lots and lots of experience. World Cup, they won it a few times.

They have players playing in the greatest European clubs.

They have a very striking power.

“7-1 for the first match in this competition. It’s not nothing, but we’ll go there to win. With the mind to win and to get to our qualification from the second day on.

“We’ll go eyeball to eyeball with them and we’ll try to give it our all. We have our own qualities.

We’ll lean on our own strength and we’ll try to bring down the German wall.“

Ivory Coast, appearing at the World Cup for the first time since 2014, have never reached the knockout stages.