Ivory Coast may have been defeated 2-1 by Germany in their second World Cup game on Saturday, but head coach Emerse Fae still believes his side can emulate Morocco at the 2022 edition in Qatar and at least reach the final four of the ongoing competition.
After winning their opener 1-0 against Ecuador, they are well placed to reach the knockouts despite their narrow loss in Toronto, in which they gave a good account of themselves before Deniz Undav scored a 94th-minute winner for Germany.
The defeat means the Ivorians must wait until their final group game against Curacao to guarantee progression to the knockouts, but coach Fae is still backing his team to embark on a fairytale run this year.
"We hope our journey can be the same as Morocco's in 2022," he told journalists. "We prepared for this competition, and we want to go as far as possible.
"We have a young squad who's growing well together, growing quickly together, and it's the first World Cup for all 26 players that I've called up.
"We're going to continue and try to use this match as a lesson to fine tune the mistakes, the shortcomings that we still have. That will help us go as far as possible."
Despite the defeat, Ivory Coast gave a good account of themselves in Toronto, taking the lead against the four-time champions when Franck Kessié scored from close range in the 30th minute.
As the Ivorians tired, substitute Undav changed the course of the contest late on, first equalising when he met a Nadiem Amiri cross in the 68th minute before finishing with aplomb in the fourth minute of stoppage time to seal maximum points.
"We've still got everything to play for, and we don't need to wait on the results of other games, we've got our destiny [at] our own feet to go through to the Round of 32," Fae said. "First, we'll rest and then we'll look to see what Curacao are made of by looking at their game against Ecuador. Then we'll put our strategy in place.
"We could have probably won today, but as well as frustration, there's a lot of pride. We're really happy with the behaviour of our players during these 90 minutes.
"It was a textbook performance, and I think we can use this for what's coming next in the competition."
Ivory Coast conclude their Group E campaign against Curacao in Philadelphia on Thursday, where they will secure second place in the group if they avoid defeat against the side that , who held Ecuador to secure a first ever World Cup point on Saturday.
A defeat could drop Ivory Coast into third place in the group - and still in with a chance of progression - unless Ecuador defeat Germany, in which case the 2024 African champions would finish bottom of the group.