Sebastien Haller & the Zombie Elephants – AFCON 2024 destroyed our reality
The tip of Sebastien Haller’s big toe has got us thoroughly rattled.
If Cote d’Ivoire’s narrative arc was written into a movie, you’d stand up, spike your popcorn into the sticky carpet, and storm out of the cinema before demanding a refund for the utter madness you’ve just witnessed.
Things like the Ivory Coast’s AFCON journey don’t happen in real life. They just don’t.
You do not host the tournament, crumble to a 4-0 shellacking by Equatorial Guinea, and sack your manager after your final group stage game, only to qualify as one of the best third-placed teams.
You also don’t then put the assistant manager in charge of a senior football team for the first time in his entire f*cking life, knock the reigning champs, Senegal, out in the round of 16 via a last-minute equaliser and a penalty shootout.
Other things you simply don’t do might include snatching an equaliser at the death of the quarter-final against Mali, followed by a 122nd-minute winner.
Or, if you had miraculously achieved all of the aforementioned fantasy novel bullsh*t, you’re extremely unlikely to then beat DR Congo in the semifinal with a goal from your talismanic striker Sebastien Haller on the anniversary of his first goal following a recovery from testicular cancer.
That would be silly. No one would believe it. Get rid of the script, start again, you’re being daft.
Happened, though, didn’t it? Only bloody happened.
By the time the AFCON final started last night, none of us were ruling anything out. Usually, rational people were mumbling to themselves, wide-eyed, about fate and zombie elephants.
The Ivorians were up against Nigeria, who’d already beaten them 1-0 in the group stages. It seemed like we were set for a repeat of that game, as the Super Eagles took
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