{"id":17782,"date":"2013-02-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/02\/cote-divoire-want-to-be-champions-says-gradel\/"},"modified":"2013-02-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T00:00:00","slug":"cote-divoire-want-to-be-champions-says-gradel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/02\/02\/cote-divoire-want-to-be-champions-says-gradel\/","title":{"rendered":"Cote d\u2019Ivoire Want To Be Champions, Says Gradel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Cote d\u2019Ivoire have said they wish to finally be crowned champions of Africa and are not taken in by the tag of favourites.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have always been tagged as favourites for this tournament, but we have not won it since then. This time we want to win it,\u201d said Saint Etienne midfielder, Max Gradel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat would be great for our country because it was a big blow when we lost last year\u2019s final. But good enough the new competition has come quickly and we now want to go on to win the trophy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Elephants have only won the Nations Cup once in 1992 but since 2006, they have finished at least in the top four and were beaten in the final seven years ago in Egypt, as well as, last year by Zambia.<\/p>\n<p>Gradel praised today\u2019s quarterfinal foes Nigeria, saying they respect the Super Eagles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have a very strong squad with some good players. There is the goalkeeper (Vincent Enyeama) and an experienced centre back (Joseph Yobo). We respect them, but we\u2019re not scared of them,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to win and every player is focused and confident. And we will start with the game on Sunday and hopefully go all the way to the final.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Saint Etienne star also praised Coach Sabri Lamouchi for \u201cbringing a new spirit to the team\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe coach has brought a new spirit and a new way of doing things. The players respect each other, fight for each other and give everything on the pitch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Cote d\u2019Ivoire have said they wish to finally be crowned champions of Africa and are not taken in by the tag of favourites. \u201cWe have always been tagged as favourites for this tournament, but we have not won it since then&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}