Ivory Coast vs Japan Prediction - Will The African Elephants Be Able To Defeat Japan?

Next Sunday, Ivory Coast will go head-to-head with Japan at Arena Pernambuco in Recife on the second match of Group C, after Colombia and Greece open the “group festivities” a few hours earlier.

Despite having an excellent set of players, Ivory Coast are probably not enjoying the best of moments lately. The Elephants ended the African World Cup qualification round unbeaten and granted their ticket to Brazil at the expenses of Senegal on two playoff matches. Nevertheless, their recent performances have been somewhat disappointing as they have only managed to win one of the three matches they played this year so far. Last week, the Ivorians defeated a frail El Salvador side by 2-1 thanks to goals from Drogba and Gervinho. A few days earlier, Ivory Coast didn’t have the same luck as they were defeated by Bosnia and Herzegovina by an identical result.

The team’s manager Sabri Lamouchi was under heavy fire after he announced the players he had picked for the World Cup and left CSKA Moscow’s striker Seydou Doumbia, who scored 20 goals this season, out of the lot. Lamouchi had already had his share deal of controversy in the recent past when he dropped Didier Drogba after a fairly disappointing 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.

For the World Cup matches, the Ivorian manager will certainly keep pushing his usual 4-3-3 style with an inverted triangle in the midfield line, having Yaya Touré as the team’s playmaker at the front vertice of that respective triangle.

As for Japan, the match against Ivory Coast will mark the beginning of their fifth consecutive World Cup participation. The Nipponic team, currently led by the charismatic Italian head coach Alberto Zaccheroni, are going through a very positive period lately and they might cause some unexpected upsets during the tournament. Japan won their last four games, against New Zealand, Cyprus, Costa Rica and Zambia and they arrive at the World Cup with a lifted morale.

For the match against the African team, Alberto Zaccheroni will probably have all his players at his disposal since there aren’t currently any names on the team’s injury list.

Ivory Coast are favourites for next Sunday’s match, especially because of their formidable attacking options, nevertheless, it is fair to say that if this highly moralized Japanese team manages to take advantage from the sloppiness of the Ivorian defensive line, they might in fact cause the African squad a major upset.

Ivory Coast

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - WLDDW

Japan

Stats: W-5 L-0 D-0

Recent Form - WWWWW

Possible Line-ups

Ivory Coast (4-3-3) - Barry - Aurier - K. Touré - Bamba - Boka - Tiote - Die - Y. Touré - Gervinho - Kalou - Drogba

Japan (4-2-3-1) - Nishikawa - Ushida - Nagatomo - Konno - Yoshida - Endo - Yamaguchi - Honda - Kagawa - Okazaki - Kakitani

Prediction: Ivory Coast 1 Japan 1