First Touch ’26 - Ivory Coast

For many fans, Ivory Coast will always be the land of Drogba, the Touré brothers, and a golden generation that helped pause a civil war and made the Elephants a global cult favorite. In this World Cup Capsule, David Gass revisits that era and then shifts to the present, where Côte d’Ivoire enter 2026 as defending African champions and one of the continent’s most exciting teams. We track their evolution from early AFC