Mali v Ivory Coast: Africa Cup of Nations 2019 last 16 – live!

32 mins: Moussa Djenepo, the winger signed by Southampton over the summer, has caused plenty of trouble for Ivory Coast, who have struggled to get out of their half in the last few minutes.

28 mins: Mali have been the more attacking side, and Koné has a go from the edge of the area, but blazes it over the bar.

26 mins: Niall McVeigh here – just jumping in as Simon has some technical issues.

14 mins: Ivory Coast have so far relied on long balls. This doesn’t seem a hopeless tactic: Pepe runs clear in pursuit of the latest, but it’s overhit and collected by Diarra.

11 mins: Mali are looking quite bright in attack, and Marega leads their latest push forwards. It’s a fine move, but rather than going for goal he tries to set up Coulibaly, which is where it all goes wrong. A minute earlier Djenepo ran down the left, before overhitting a pull-back, which his team-mate couldn’t control.

7 mins: Half a chance for Zaha, who runs onto a poor defensive header, cuts inside onto his right foot and has a shot, but two Mali defenders fling themselves into the ball’s path, and it hits the first of them.

5 mins: Shot! It’s Mali with the first pop on goal, Kone blasting a 40-yard free-kick goalwards. It flicks Pepe on its way through, and is struck with some venom, but it’s far enough from goal for Gbohouo to gather easily.

3 mins: Ivory Coast have had most of the early possession, but haven’t done a lot with it.

1 min: Peeeeep! They’re off! Ivory coast, all in white, get the game started.

Mali’s team are absolutely abysmal singers. In all my years of watching international football, I think this is a new low.

The players are on their way out! Action is but a couple of anthems away!

A reminder that there will be no VAR today (but there will be from the quarter-finals onwards):

The teams are in! And these are today’s starting line-ups:

Mali: Diarra, Traoré, Koné, Wagué, Fofana, Haidara, Samassekou, Coulibaly, Djenepo, Diaby, Marega.
Ivory Coast: Gbohouo, Coulibaly, Gbamin, Mamadou, Kanon, Kessié, Serey Die, Zaha, Pepe, Kodjia.

A quarter-final against Algeria is at stake for Mali and Ivory Coast. Both won two of their three group-stage games; the Ivorians lost the third and came second to Morocco in Group D; Mali drew with Tunisia but still won Group E at a canter. Ibrahim Kamara, the Ivory Coast coach, has an iron grip on the implications of this game: “We know that if we don’t win, we’re out,” he said. And never a truer word was spoken. “We’ll have to be focused because any mistake could cost a lot,” he added.

Ivory Coast won the tournament in 2015, and in 1992 for that matter. Mali have reached five semi-finals and one final, back in 1972, but have no trophies in their cabinet. “What happened in the past doesn’t matter. What matters is the next game,” sniffed their coach, Mohamed Magassouba. “We want to make history. In order to do that, we need humility and self-sacrifice. We want people in Mali to be happy.”

According to the 2019 World Happiness Report Mali is the 128th happiest nation. Ivory Coast is 99th, up from 151st in 2015*. A little bonus happiness is coming to one of them in a couple of hours’ time, and we can share it with them. Welcome!

* The United Kingdom, which seems to be full of pretty miserable people, came 15th.