Emerse Fae will never forget his 40th birthday on 24 January, 2024. Following Jean-Louis Gasset’s resignation, the Nantes-born former Reading, Nice and Nantes midfielder suddenly found himself in charge of a Côte d’Ivoire side that had come within a whisker of group-phase elimination at the 2023 CAF Africa Cup of Nations, all in front of their own fans.

The Elephants had Morocco to thank for avoiding that fate, with the Atlas Lions’ ۱-۰ defeat of Zambia allowing the tournament hosts to sneak into the last 16 as one of the four best third-placed teams. Having nearly suffered a shock early exit, Côte d’Ivoire then produced one of the most stunning turnarounds in the history of the tournament, with a rookie head coach at the helm.

Despite often having their backs to the wall, The Elephants never surrendered and managed to come from behind more than once. In their last-16 tie against defending champions Senegal, the tournament hosts scored late to force extra time and then prevailed 5-4 on penalties. Sebastien Haller and his team-mates repeated the feat in the quarter-finals against Mali, with last-gasp goals in both normal and extra time giving them a 2-1 win.

Then followed a 1-0 defeat of Congo DR in the semis before another comeback in the final against Nigeria, who were eventually beaten 2-1 as the hosts secured a dramatic title to cap a campaign full of plot twists, dubbed by some as a ‘Fae-ry tale’. And while much of the credit for that achievement should go to the head coach and his tactical acumen, it is hard to overlook the key role also played by his assistant Guy Demel, who gave up TV punditry duties to join his long-time friend in the dug-out.

In an exclusive interview with FIFA.com, the high-flying Fae, who won 41 caps for his country, talked about right-hand man Demel, that stunning Africa Cup of Nations win, the additional recognition that has come with it, and Côte d’Ivoire’s future goals, chief among them qualification for the FIFA World Cup 26™.

What has life been like for you since winning the Africa Cup of Nations?
Emerse Fae: I’m in demand a lot more and I get recognised in the street much more now. People stop me for selfies and to congratulate me. Life used to be a lot quieter for me. I’d get recognised me now and then but it’s nothing compared to what’s happening now.

At what point during the Africa Cup of Nations did you start to think that the trophy was yours?
It’s hard for me to think like that as a coach, but when we beat Mali 2-1 in the quarter-finals we said that anything was possible. We’d come from so far back, squeezing into the last 16, where we came up against the defending champions, Senegal, and beat them on penalties. Then came that match against Mali, when we fell behind with 20 minutes to go, equalised in the 90th minute and scored the winner in the 120th. We said after that game that we were mentally strong, that even if we fell behind or were a man down, we could still do big things and that it would be tough to stop us.

Someone else who had their life turned upside down during the tournament was your assistant coach Guy Demel. How would you describe your relationship?
When we were players, Guy was my big brother. I roomed with him when we were with the national team and that’s where we shared our ideas, talking the whole time. We see life and football in the same way. He introduced me to my wife and he’s the godfather of my eldest daughter. When I got the Elephants job, it was Yacine Idriss Diallo, the president of the Ivorian Football Association (FIF), who suggested Guy Demel as my assistant because he knows how well we get on. If I was going to make a success of the job at the tournament, I needed someone strong to support me and someone I get on well with and who shares the same vision as me.

Do you think the hardest part of the job is starting for you now?
Of course! Now that we’ve won the Africa Cup of Nations in the way that we did things will be expected of us and people will see us in a different way. We went into it as inexperienced coaches handed an impossible job. If we’d failed, no-one would have said a thing. But we managed to pull off something amazing and people now expect things from us, not with bated breath, but they want to see us back it up and in a short space of time too. We’re not scared of the future. We believe in ourselves, in our ideas, and we really can’t wait to overcome all these challenges.

You’re about to play your first matches since becoming African champions, taking on Uruguay and Benin in friendlies in France. Are you expecting a warm welcome?
We have a lot of fans living in Europe and in France in particular. We want to take this opportunity to thank them because some of them weren’t able to make the trip back home.

The next round of qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup 26™ take place in June, with Côte d’Ivoire up against Gabon and Kenya. What are your thoughts on those matches?
We’re going to get back into the swing of preparing for a competition. We’ve made a good start to the qualifiers, beating Seychelles 9-0 and Gambia 2-0 in our first two games and moving to the top of the pool. This is a vital World Cup and we just have to qualify. Côte d’Ivoire missed out on the last two World Cups and we can’t afford to miss out on the next. The coaching staff are already focusing on these two games, when we’ll be up against the second and third teams in the group. We have to make sure we do a job and extend the gap between us and our challengers.