Nicolas Pepe scored twice as Ivory Coast reached the World Cup knockout stages for the first time thanks to a 2-0 victory which eliminated tournament debutants Curacao.<\/p>\n
Arsenal’s one-time \u00a372 million (\u20ac83.5m) record signing gave his country a seventh-minute lead in Philadelphia, slotting in from close range following Yan Diomande\u2019s cut back from the left.<\/p>\n
Forward Pepe, who plays for Spanish side Villarreal, collected a pass from Ibrahim Sangare to double his tally in the 64th minute.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast go through as Group E runners-up and will face either France or Norway in the last 32.<\/p>\n
Following a 1-0 victory over Ecuador and 2-1 defeat to Germany, the three-time African champions kicked off knowing a draw would be sufficient to progress.<\/p>\n
Emerse Fae\u2019s side made a dream start, with Diomande capitalising on a defensive error to tee up Pepe to sweep home a first-time finish from inside the six-yard box.<\/p>\n
Curacao came into the contest still in contention to reach the second round after securing a landmark first World Cup point by holding Ecuador to a goalless draw on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Dick Advocaat\u2019s team rarely looked like adding to the goal they managed in their opening 7-1 defeat to Germany and were dealt a knockout blow just after the hour mark when Pepe fired into the left side of the net after being played in by Nottingham Forest midfielder Sangare.<\/p>\n
Watch every game of the FIFA 2026 World Cup live on RT\u00c9 with highlights on RT\u00c9 Sport digital platforms and live blogs on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app<\/p>\n
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Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicolas Pepe scored twice as Ivory Coast reached the World Cup knockout stages for the first time thanks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-518774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}