When Emerse Faé was appointed interim head coach of Côte d'Ivoire on January 24, he had every reason to fail. Coach Jean-Louis Gasset, whose assistant he had been, had just left his post following the Elephants' crushing 0-4 defeat against Equatorial Guinea, the team was on the brink of elimination, and the players were in tears, humiliated by their poor showing. "We've come close to a nightmare," said striker Sébastien Haller.
Faé – who celebrated his 40th birthday on the same day – found himself at the head of a team "at rock bottom," as attacking midfielder Seko Fofana recalled, wondering how they would manage to qualify for the Round of 16. And, to spice up the already gloomy situation, the Ivorian football federation was trying, unsuccessfully, to recruit Hervé Renard, who had won the 2015 AFCON with the Elephants.
Those days of widespread despair among Ivorian fans now seem so long ago. On Sunday, February 11, Faé will go in quest of another victory, and a life-changing one: winning the final of the tournament against Nigeria at the Alassane-Ouattara stadium in Ebimpé, north of Abidjan. Earning the country's third star was unthinkable just a short while ago. "I'm very moved. It's like a dream," he said. "When you go back two weeks ago to the defeat here against Equatorial Guinea, it's hard to imagine."
On January 28, in Yamoussoukro, the new coach set the tone at his first press conference, on the eve of facing Senegal, the defending champion, in the Round of 16. He spoke of a "resurrection," of a "second chance that God is giving us," of "confidence" to be regained, of knowing his team "for a year and a half." "For me, it would be unacceptable for attitudes not to change when we've come so far," he said with determination. Without yet knowing it, this young coach was about to write one of the finest pages in the history of the national team and become the revelation of this AFCON and the main character in this Ivorian "Faé-ry tale."
Beating Senegal in the round of 16 (1-1, 4-5 on penalties), Mali in the quarter-finals (1-2) – despite being reduced to 10 men – and the Republic of Congo (1-0) in the semi-finals, Côte d'Ivoire has defied all the odds and defeated all their opponents. "You're here for 10 years!" a journalist shouted at a press conference after the duel with the Lions of Teranga. The coach smiled politely.
Faé owes his victories not only to "miracles," but above all to tactical choices: starting veterans such as Serge Aurier and Max-Alain Gradel (winners of the AFCON in 2015), putting his faith in Jean-Michaël Seri or Odilon Kossounou, and even, if need be, benching the likes of Franck Kessié. So when a journalist asked the coach to explain his "strong choices," he replied: "What strong choice? I have a squad of 27 players. A strong choice is when you decide to play a player who doesn't fit into your plans, but for me, all of the players are in my plan. For the good of the team."
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