The Ivory Coast needed a victory with a huge goal difference against North Korea to qualify in the second round of the World Cup 2010 finals, the Elephants scored three goals in Nelspruit, but Portugal also had to lose against Brazil with a similar score and that never happened. So the Ivory Coast finished in third place of Group G, and even though they got their first victory in the 2010 World Cup, will not be able to continue in the round of 16.
Even though Sven-Göran Eriksson and his team knew it would take a miracle to continue playing in South Africa, they had to at least try doing their part in the Mbombela Stadium game coming in with full offence: Yaya Touré opened the score in 14′, and Romaric put in a second one 6 minutes later after Didier Drogba’s powerful shot at the post. And that was one of three shots at the post during the first half for the Ivory Coast, with both Romaric (17′) and Drogba (39′) hitting the iron. Didier Drogba also scored another goal in the 13th minute of the game, that was correctly marked as an offside. So the Ivory Coast was doing everything right, missing a ton of chances and scoring goals, but the news coming in from the other game of Group G were definitely discouraging for the players.
Apart from very few chances (mostly by Salomon Kalou) in the second half, it was obvious that Ivory Coast had accepted the fact that they would not qualify to the second round unless Portugal lost their game. Kalou finally managed to put his name on the scoreboard in 82′ making it 3-0 for the Ivory Coast, a result that did not change until the final whistle.
