Drogba: Ivory Coast can win cup

Chelsea striker Didier Drogba predicts that Ivory Coast will impress in the African Cup of Nations in January.

The African side disappointed fans after being knocked out in last year’s quarter-finals, but Drogba is confident that the Ivorians have the quality in their squad to succeed in the tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

“We are going to have a lot of fans from Ivory Coast there but it doesn’t really matter where you play because whenever you go to a competition you go to win,” he told Chelsea’s website.

“We had a good qualification and this competition is the one all the African countries want to win so this one is going to be tough again.”

“There is Senegal, there is Morocco, there is Tunisia, there is Gabon who are playing at home so they are going to be a good team, and there will always be some surprises,” he said.

“Only one will win the cup, I hope we are going to be the country.”

Drogba was part of the side which was beaten on penalties by Egypt in the final of the tournament in 2009 and the Ivorian believes the experience of their opponents was the key.

“We could have won it because our squad was really good but it is not only about the quality of the squad, and when you play teams like Egypt they had a lot of understanding because they had played together for nine years,” he said.

“When we lost to Egypt it was in Egypt and we lost on penalties.”

“We had a great tournament but I hope this season is going to be better than the last African Cup when we went out in the quarter-finals.”