HOSTS Ivory Coast beat Nigeria 2-1 to be crowned AFCON champions and complete one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the history of the competition, reports Vlad Andrejevic.

In an entertaining final which saw the Super Eagles go ahead through a William Troost-Ekong header, the home nation once again made a brilliant comeback as Franck Kessie and Sebastian Haller both scored in the second half to see the Elephants become the first home nation to lift the trophy since 2006.

The hosts only qualified for the knockout rounds through the skin of their teeth following an embarrassing 4-0 group stage loss to Equatorial Guinea which saw their manager sacked, yet they have shown remarkable resilience to recover and go from strength to strength as the tournament progressed on their way to making history.

Buoyed by their own fans at the Alassane Ouattara Stadium in Abidjan, they produced their most impressive performance at the most crucial time, starting the game on the front foot whilst Nigeria looked to absorb the early pressure.

Man-of-the-match Simon Adingra was menacing from the off, collecting a loose ball from a corner early on and sending in a threatening cross which just evaded the sliding boot of striker Sebastian Haller.

Following another good chance being missed by Max Gradel from a corner, the game fell into a lull as the Super Eagles frustrated their opponents.

After a lull, the final sparked back into life when Kessie found the run of Adingra, who took a delicate touch before shooting from a tight angle and forcing a strong save from Stanley Nwabali.

Moments later Nigeria made their first real foray up the field with Alex Iwobi sending a clever pass out wide to Zaidu Sanusi who took a heavy first touch which allowed Odilon Kossounou to recover.

From the resulting corner, Samuel Chukwueze flicked the ball on towards captain Troost-Ekong who towered over counterpart Serge Aurier to power in his third goal of the competition and give Nigeria the lead going into half time.

The Elephants came back out of the blocks intent on finding a quick equaliser, with the electric Adingra again threatening as he beat Ola Aina and sent in a cross which Nwabali could only parry into the path of Max Gradel whose shot was well blocked by Kalvin Bassey.

Nwabali remained busy, firstly to keep out Kessie’s header before turning
Odilon Koussounou’s long shot around the post. It was the hosts turn to capitalise on the set piece as Adingra’s floated cross found its way to the back post where Kessie was waiting to smash in his header for the equaliser.

Other than a miscued Troost-Ekong header, Ivory Coast were always more likely to find the winner as Adingra headed a ball into the path Haller who tried an ambitious overhead kick. Those two combined again minutes later as the tricky winger once more beat Aina on his side and clipped a ball into the near post for Haller to apply an instinctive flick past Nwabali to send the stadium into a frenzy and end a campaign that looked as if it was written in the stars for the home nation.