Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure believes the struggle they had in beating Sudan demonstrates the progression in African football which will make it far from easy for his side to take the continent’s biggest prize.

Sudan battled hard in their African Nations Cup Group B opener, eventually succumbing to a single Didier Drogba goal as Ivory Coast ran out 1-0 winners.

Ivory Coast face another unheralded side tomorrow in the shape of Burkina Faso, but Toure does not believe this means they will have an comfortable path into the next round.

“It won’t be easy,” he said. “Anything can happen.

“Everyone can say, ‘Okay, yeah, Ivory Coast against Sudan was easy for Ivory Coast.’

“But in the end, when you see how the game went, you will realise how African football has progressed, how every team has come to fight, to want to go through.

“Because you come to a competition to believe you can go through.”

Tournament favourites Ivory Coast know first hand how tough a challenge they face in the shape of Burkina Faso, having been held to a goalless draw by the same opposition in Angola.

Nevertheless, Toure feels his side can have a tactical edge over some of their continental opponents.

“We have to be so intelligent; we have to be strong,” he said. “Because African teams, tactically, they are not so good.

“Technically they are fantastic, but mentally they are not so strong like a European team.

“And we have to work on that, because all the time we went to an African Nations we always came back disappointed.

“But I think this year will be our year.”

Burkina Faso lost their opening fixture 2-1 to Angola on Sunday.

After poor defending contributed to both Angola’s goals, coach Portuguese Paulo Duarte has called for an improvement.

“There are two or three points on positioning that need work,” he said. “We gave the two goals to the strikers.”

Midfielder Abdou Razak Traore missed that game because of what Duarte described as “passport issues” and it remains unclear whether those have been resolved.