I really like Emerse Fae as a coach. I'm really excited to see what happens in his tenure regardless of how the game on Sunday goes.
I think it's very important to have a French coach. And people are forgetting, Fae was born in France, raised in France and played for French youth national teams first. Fae is French, and it's extremely useful because we need French coaches to stay relevant in the recruiting space.
A lot of this team was put together by Dussuyer and Gasset. I think it was extremely damaging under Kamara and Beaumelle, there was so much rhetoric about supporting the local leagues and calling up local league players to the national team. We were putting very bad teams out there, and a lot of relationships built up by Dussuyer fell through during that time period and were revived by Gasset. The entire team can't be French expats but in order for us to have the depth that we have this year, we can have 3 guys sitting out on cards, and sub in 5 quality guys, you need to recruit well.
Fae is a good blend. He is French, so French kids will relate to him. But he's also younger, he looks like the players, so the Ivorian players and fans will also buyin. And he's demonstrated technical competence as well. Winning the AFCON would obviously be huge but regardless, I want to see a run with him as head coach.