Who won the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations? Ivory Coast beat Nigeria in AFCON final 2024 to claim glory on home soil – Sporting News
The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations was among the most intriguing and entertaining of the tournament’s recent iterations.
The finals, staged in the Ivory Coast in January and February, 2024, saw plenty of early shocks and a remarkable run of results for the host nation.
Ivory Coast lost two of their three group-stage games, the last of which was a 4-0 defeat to Equatorial Guinea. They promptly sacked head coach Jean-Louis Gasset, even though they scraped into the knockout phase as one of the best third-placed teams. Assistant Emerse Fae took over as interim manager and incredibly managed to guide his team through the knockouts all the way to the final.
Awaiting Ivory Coast were Nigeria, who beat the Elephants 1-0 during the group phase. The Super Eagles were one of the few relatively consistent sides in the tournament, although they needed a penalty shootout to get past 10-man South Africa in the semifinals after previous strong performances, including a 2-0 win over Cameroon, one of the pre-tournament favourites.
Here is how the AFCON 2023 final went down in Abidjan.
MORE: Who won the Africa Cup of Nations Golden Boot in 2023?
Ivory Coast were the winners of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, becoming the first host nation to emerge as champions since Egypt back in 2006.
The Elephants defeated Nigeria 2-1 in the final on February 10, 2024. William Troost-Ekong gave the Super Eagles a first-half lead, but Franck Kessie deservedly levelled just after the hour mark. With just nine minutes of normal time remaining, Sebastien Haller — who took time out from football following a cancer diagnosis in 2022 — prodded home the winning goal.
It was Ivory Coast’s third AFCON title and their first since 2015. Only Ghana, Cameroon, and Egypt have won the tournament more often.
Egypt have been the dominant nation in Africa Cup of Nations history with The Pharaohs winning seven titles including the first edition of the competition back in 1957.
Six other nations have won the trophy more than once with an overall total of 15 winners of the tournament.
Joe is Senior Editor (Football) at Sporting News.
