By Frank Pingue
TORONTO, June 19 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast coach Emerse Fae said on Friday his team are heading into their World Cup showdown with Germany with one thing on their mind, and saving face is not it.
Fae signalled his team's intentions clearly when asked whether the four-times world champions Germany were simply too big a hurdle for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations winners to clear in their Group E clash in Toronto on Saturday.
"We're not coming to watch the Germans play. We're coming to beat
them, we're coming to get that qualification for the second round," said Fae.
"But above all, we want to go home after the game tomorrow to our base camp in Philadelphia not only with our six points, but also the certainty that we'll finish top of the pack."
Ivory Coast left it late in their group stage opener, with substitute Amad Diallo scoring a 90th-minute winner for a 1-0 victory over Ecuador, and the West Africans are now aiming to kick off a World Cup campaign with consecutive wins for the first time.
By contrast, six players were on the scoresheet for Germany during their 7-1 crushing of debutants Curacao.
Still, Fae said there are no plans to change their approach, stressing instead that his squad have been working together for more than two years and are growing in confidence.
"We've been growing together, and it's not the eve of a game that we're going to change what we're used to," said Fae. "We want to control the game, we want to play to our strengths, and we want to try and limit our weaknesses.
"But we prepared for Germany like we prepared for any other game."
Fae, whose side have stomped their way to six clean sheets in their last 10 games, also pushed back on the notion that being underdogs would weigh on his players.
"We weren't the favourites going into the game against Ecuador either," he said. "We went in all guns blazing, and tomorrow we're playing against a strong team. We don't want to be thinking about being favourites. It's about winning the game."
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in TorontoEditing by Christian Radnedge)
