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International Friendly (Canadian Shield)
New Zealand v Ivory Coast
BMO Field, Toronto
Sunday 8 June, 2025
01:00
Ivory Coast and New Zealand will have their first-ever senior international meeting when they clash in a Canadian Shield match, set for the BMO Field in Toronto on the morning of Sunday 8 June, 2025. Kick-off is at 01:00
The West African side head to North America on the back of successive 1-0 wins over Burundi and Gambia in 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches back in March. The Elephants are well on course to secure a ticket to next year’s global tournament, and will use this trip as something of a ‘scouting mission’ to one of the World Cup’s host nations.
Ivory Coast head coach Emerse Fae has chosen a strong squad, featuring stars such as Franck Kessie, Jeremie Boga, Sebastien Haller, Nicolas Pepe and Ibrahim Sangare, though there are notable omissions, such as Willy Boly, Eric Bailly, Evan Ndicka, Seko Fofana, Jean-Michael Seri, Christian Kouame and Jean-Philippe Krasso.
Newcomers in the Elephants squad are Mohamed Kone, Cedric Kipre, Luck Zogbe and Parfait Guiagon.
New Zealand come into the match on the back of a six-game winning streak, most recently thrashing Fiji 7-0 and New Caledonia 3-0 in World Cup qualifiers in March – the two victories secured their ticket to next year’s global showpiece.
All Whites head coach Darren Bazeley has made five changes to his squad compared to March: Saint-Étienne attacker Ben Old returns from injury, while Finn Surman, Callan Elliot, Bill Tuiloma and Nik Tzanev all earned recalls. Defender Tim Payne will miss the international window, with his partner due to give birth in June, while Oli Sail, Storm Roux, Jesse Randall and Logan Rogerson have been left out.
“We’ve looked at all of our options and selected as strong a squad as we can,” said Bazeley. “We can’t afford to waste [international] windows by looking at different options all of the time.”
The coach added that he is looking forward to coming up against higher quality opponents in the shape of Ivory Coast and Ukraine: “Ten of our last 12 matches have been against lower-ranked opponents [...]. But now we're heading into this run of fixtures where we’re playing against really good teams, ranked in the top 50 in the world.”
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