\n
Nigeria defender, William Troost-Ekong says it is difficult to shake off the disappointment of failing to win the title at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n
The Super Eagles came close to winning the AFCON title for the fourth time but lost 2-1 to hosts Cote d\u2019Ivoire in the final.<\/p>\n
Troost-Ekong gave Nigeria the lead in the first half but Cote d\u2019Ivoire rallied to win the game through goals from Franck Kessie and Sebastien Haller.<\/p>\n
The centre-back, who scored three goals for the Super Eagles in the competition won the Player of Tournament prize.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the Super Eagles outing at AFCON 2023, Troost-Ekong said it was tough to lose the final when they were so close to glory.
\n\u201cIt was bitter-sweet in the end,\u201d he told CNN World Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get so close all you want to do is win it, and I think the way the tournament played out with some of the more fancied nations got eliminated it just seemed like everything was working for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo lose in the final is hard, but being really honest Ivory Coast were better than us on the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I brought home Player of the Tournament which is something special and something I wasn\u2019t expecting at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still would have swapped it for a winner\u2019s medal though.\u201d<\/p>\n
Missing out of AFCON 2023 title still hurts \u2014 Troost-Ekong<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria defender, William Troost-Ekong says it is difficult to shake off the disappointment of failing to win the title at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5907,15,160,9125],"tags":[210,110,180,201,9126],"class_list":["post-23840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afcon-2023","category-news","category-sport","category-troost-ekong","tag-210","tag-afcon","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-troost-ekong"],"yoast_head":"\n
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