Sven Goran Eriksson confident ahead of World Cup

Sven Goran Eriksson has been preparing his Ivory Coast side for the World Cup
10 April 2012

Sven-Goran Eriksson is confident that most of the work has been done in preparing his Ivory Coast squad for the World Cup with attention now set to be turned towards their tournament opener against Portugal.

The Swedish coach, who was only appointed as coach of the Elephants in late March, has been hard at work at the team's Montreux training camp in Switzerland for the past 10 days.

The African country are widely regarded as the continent's best hope of success at this summer's finals, but face a stern test to get through the first round after being drawn in Group G alongside Brazil, North Korea and the Portuguese - the team they face first up on June 15.

But Eriksson told the Ivorian Football Federation (FIF) website, www.fif.ci: "The only work that remains to be done relates to the organisation of the game and the team on the field.

"I know the weaknesses of the team and I am working with my staff to rectify these before the start of the World Cup.

"Allow me to not reveal the weaknesses of my team before the competition, but what we have learned is that the remainder of the work surrounds things like field positioning of players during attack and defence."

Eriksson also revealed that he has learnt a lot from studying their recent matches and will now be focussing mainly on their clash against the European nation at Nelson Mandela Bay.

He added: "I watched the matches of the African Nations Cup and have also seen the team play in these situations during their last few friendly matches.

"I have a clear idea of the work that remains to be done and we will definitely be ready for the start of the World Cup.

"We still have two weeks ahead of us and the work will now intensify ahead of that opening game against Portugal."

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