AFCON 2015: Congratulations to the Ivory Coast

Wilfried Bony again proved crucial to the Ivory Coast in their 3-1 Semi-Final victory over the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He provided the assist for Yaya Touré's screamer, which opened the scoring in the game, and for Gervinho's second goal of the tournament, which put Ivory Coast 2-1 up and effectively ended the contest.

Bony also drew 4 fouls on him, joint-highest on the field with Serey Die, the Ivory Coast's defensive midfielder. This shows how much of an inconvenience Bony made himself to the DRC defence throughout the match.

The shooting statistics I covered in my last post actually do a pretty good job of explaining what happened in last night's Semi-Final. Although the DRC outshot the Ivory Coast 19 - 14, both teams fired 7 shots on target. Shooting on target implies an element of skill: accuracy. When this skill is converted into goals that is an even more desirable attacking skill. 

As my last post demonstrated, throughout this year's Africa Cup of Nations the Ivory Coast has been more skilful in front of goal with a goal-per shot on target ratio of 0.43 (meaning roughly every 2.5 shots on target they shoot, one goal will come from it) to the DRC's 0.29 (meaning they take, on average, slightly more than 3 shots on target to score 1 goal). 

Furthermore, the shot differential statistics - shots taken minus shots conceded - over the course of the tournament showed the DRC generally take more shots than their opponents do. Defensively, the teams had fairly similar records in terms of the goals conceded per shot on target conceded statistic. They both hovered slightly over 0.2 implying their opponents averaged taking five shots on target before scoring a goal.

On the night, it took a brilliant effort from Yaya Touré to break the deadlock. The DRC's equaliser came from a penalty, and they looked good again in the game, only to concede a goal on a turnover of possession due to a hospital pass from Yannick Bolasie being taken over by the Ivory Coast and Bony and Gervinho did the rest. 

As Jonathan Wilson has written in the Guardian, and as I wrote here, it seems like this Ivory Coast side is content to play on the counter-attack. It seems to be paying dividends...