Last World Cup: Group Stage
Nickname: Les Éléphants
Coach: Sabri Lamouchi
Star man: Yaya Toure
Tournament best: Group stage 2006, 2010

The African nation possess plenty of goal threat from Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou, Wilfried Bony and Yaya Toure but they have struggled to transfer that into success at major tournaments despite regularly being one of their continent's standard-bearers.

Strengths: The Ivorians qualified strongly, scoring in every game and netting the largest proportion of early goals: over a quarter of their strikes arrived in the opening 15 minutes of matches. Their threat hardly diminishes as the game goes on, being one of seven qualifying sides to recover more than half of available points from losing positions.

Weaknesses: Defensively however, they've tended to end games less gloriously, with nearly half of the goals conceded in qualifying coming in the final quarter of an hour of games. They tended not to make much use of the wings going forward, which could allow more experienced defences to corral them.

Prospects: Their ability to come from behind could prove invaluable against Colombia, who have struggled to preserve leads in qualifying. Greece may prove tougher to break down given the lack of early goals they've conceded, while Japan's preference for moving the ball out wide should create an interesting tactical match-up.