Côte d’Ivoire into knockout stage for first time as Pépé inspires win against Curaçao

Côte d’Ivoire surviving the World Cup group stage for the first time, in the year of our football gods 2026, is one of those tidbits that sounds like it should not be true, and yet here we are. An underwhelming 2-0 victory, courtesy of Nicolas Pépé’s double, put the Ivorians through to the last 32 as group runners-up. But it was an imprecise contest here in Philadelphia, the cradle of American democracy – such as it is. All the same, a spirited Curaçao leave their first World Cup. There was always going to be a trade off in expanding the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams. Too many teams to fully appreciate the complexities and curiosities of each one; certainly too many games to track with any kind of deep attention; the possibility of uncompetitive games, of slightly-hard-to-watch walkovers. But then it also opened up the possibility of the kind of underdog drama that is all too rare in modern football, with the sides usually separated surgically into ability-appropriate devices like the various continental Nations Leagues. Certainly, Curaçao and the World Cup’s three other newcomers have benefited from the tournament’s expansion. Less fanfare has been made about the impact on nations like Côte d’Ivoire, exactly the sort of side that has quietly profited from the newly bloated format. They were a team stuck in the sort of upper-middle class of the global football ecosystem. One of the most populous nations in West Africa, they have produced excellent ­players for decades. …