Ivorian legend Didier Drogba could barely contain his boyish excitement. Granted, it was an official statement to the Confederation of Africaine de Football (CAF) website, and a fair amount of standard positive press-speak was woven in, but two references to ‘beautiful’, two to ‘party’ and one to ‘celebration’ gave the game away.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. After a glittering career that saw him lift almost every honour within reach, the one stage that eluded him was the international one. After retiring from international football in 2014 – having twice reached the final as captain and talisman, only to be denied by Egypt and Zambia – his countrymen lifted the second CAF Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title just months later.
In his brief exchange with the official CAF media team to look forward to the tournament, he spoke in perhaps predictable gushing terms of the pride Africans hold over the tournament. “It is the most beautiful competition for all Africans,” he insisted. “I was inspired by Roger Milla, Gadji Celi, Youssouf Fofana and many others. Our legends were revealed in this tournament… For us it’s the celebration of African football.”
This is a man who only earned his first professional contract at the age of 21 and played his first top-flight game at 24 after joining Guingamp for just ₤80,000, but within two more years he’d catapulted himself into becoming Chelsea’s record signing on the back of a UEFA Cup runners-up campaign at Marseille. A blistering start to his international career saw him plunder 17 goals in his first 19 caps before he made his AFCON bow in 2006, and by this stage he was already his captain of his country.
European-centric observers would argue his legend – and there is no doubting that status for the two-time African player of the year – was already revealed by this stage, but the way he chooses “beautiful” to describe AFCON, as opposed to, say, ‘important’ or ‘prestigious’, is extremely telling.
Forty years have passed since Côte d’Ivoire last hosted the continent’s flagship event, and the expectation is outweighed considerably by the pure visceral excitement. “The leader of the Ivorian federation was sure that if we make the semi-finals, it will be a great result,” Ivorian journalist Frédéric Aka told On The Whistle podcast. “We all know that we don’t have the greatest team, to compete with Nigeria for example, Morocco, Egypt or Algeria. Automatically we are going to fight to win the competition, but it doesn’t mean that we are going to win.”
There should be no shame in Côte d’Ivoire being realistic about their chances. No host country has won AFCON or even made the final since Egypt in 2006. In fact, since Nigeria won the 1980 tournament on home soil, only Egypt (twice), Tunisia and South Africa have lifted the trophy as hosts. The pressure is immense, regardless of the quality of players. Although results have been good in recent months with only one defeat since last January, as African football expert Alasdair Howorth explains this is “not a vintage side”.
What’s changed since Herve Renard’s 2015 AFCON-winning side of Yaya Touré, Kolo Touré, Gervinho, Seydou Doumbia? They were initially awarded hosting rights to the 2021 tournament mere weeks after Drogba announced his international retirement in 2014, before CAF stepped in to rearrange hosts, pushing back Côte d’Ivoire’s hosting until 2023 (which was the also delayed until this January to avoid the country’s horrific monsoon season) after Cameroon failed to prepare for the 2019 event.
The upshot is there has been almost a decade to prepare for this edition and groom the next batch of superstars, and a few standout names such as Bayer Leverkusen’s Odilon Kossounou, RB Salzburg’s Karim Konaté and Brighton’s Simon Adingra aside, most of the spine involves seasoned players past their prime.
There is a genuinely innovative academy setup in the Ivorian capital of Abidjan that has shone a beacon through Africa since the early 1990s that has carried the torch ever since. The MimoSifcom academy was established in 1993 by former AS Cannes manager Jean-Marc Guillou, and linked directly to ASEC Mimosas, from whom Guillou signed the Youssouf Fofana whom Drogba reveres so fondly in the 1980s.
The academy became a direct feeder for ASEC thanks in part to financial assistance from AS Monaco, then managed by Guillou’s former assistant Arsène Wenger, and within five years had fed the majority of ASEC’s African Champions League winners. Full education, medical facilities, a dedicated drive to mould mature characters and initially a very select intake of only the finest talents – a decade ago there were only 34 youngsters on the MimoSifcom books, although now that number has developed to hundreds – ensured a streamlined approach.
Relationships were established with Beveren in Belgium, and later when Wenger took charge of Arsenal he looked to Beveren from the top of the food chain – and suddenly there was a unique path all the way from the dusty streets of Côte d’Ivoire to the shiny surroundings of one of English football’s giants. That route would be exploited specifically by Emmanuel Eboué and the Touré brothers as a shining testament to a vision that had only been forged less than a decade earlier.
Of former graduates to have passed through MimoSifcom since 2018, however, only nine are actively playing outside African leagues, and that number includes two in France’s lower leagues, a 33-year-old winger in Germany’s regional state leagues, a teenage centre-back at Club Brugge’s youth setup, and a 27-year-old defender in Bulgaria. Realistically, Konaté and Oumar Diakité at Reims are the only meaningful assets in over half a decade to make a mark in European football.
Not every intake can magically come together as perfectly as the 1998 African Champions, but the cold-hard truth is that with the weight of ecstatic excitement, if not honest expectation, from their country, Côte d’Ivoire appear to face an uphill task to lift the trophy on home soil.
Perhaps victory can look different for Cote d’Ivoire. Revealing the next legend of Africa could be worth more in the long run than the trophy itself – but if by some miracle they do, you can bet the party will be beautiful in Abidjan and beyond.
For more AFCON flavour, why not take a look at our unique insight into the last tournament?
- We dug into exclusive interviews with top journalists like Babagol’s Uri Levy,
- Played our part in criticising Sky Sports for their shoddy coverage and encouraging them to improve their efforts before the tournament was out,
- Uncovered the truth behind the infamous Janny Sikazwe blowing the full-time whistle early TWICE in Mali vs Tunisia
- Revelled in Sierra Leone’s incredible goalkeeping entertainer Mohamed Kamara.
Heart of Football 
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