May 26, 2006
UNIFYING FORCE
Ivory Coast brings together warring factions

Imagine a country, any country, considering dropping out of the World Cup after it has qualified.

Ivory Coast did just that in February when the Ivorian Football Federation president Jacques Anouma said that the team would not participate in the games in Germany if there was no peace in that war-torn country.

Amouma had hoped that the Elephants' qualifying success and reaching the African Nations Cup final -- it lost to host Egypt via a penalty-kick shootout -- would bring warring factions in the north and south of the country together. Ivory Coast -- known officially by FIFA as Côte d'Ivoire -- has been split in half since 2002. Rebels hold the northern part, while the government controls the south.

There have been times when the National Team has brought some calm, but it was only temporary, not permanent.

"We hoped that each victory for the Elephants would bring the Ivorians back together for good," Anouma told Agence-France Presse. "Unfortunately we see nothing of the kind on the horizon.

"We ask all the protagonists to put down their arms and talk peace, what cause does it serve to go to the World Cup without peace in our country. Without peace there is no glory."

Even the players have seen themselves as a unifying force. In fact, after Ivory Coast's 3-1 win over the Sudan booked a spot in Germany, captain Didier Drogba, while kneeling in the locker room, led the team in a prayer for peace.

"Ivorians we beg your forgiveness. Let us come together and put this war behind us," Drogba reportedly said.

After returning home victorious from the Sudan, the players were honored by Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who awarded them the equivalent of knighthood. Each player who performed in the qualifiers and the coaching staff received a villa worth 30 million African francs.

"On 4 September we lost (to Cameroon) and no-one gave these boys a chance,” Gbagbo said. “But they have shown that they are winners. I want to promote a successful Côte d'Ivoire. I offer these young men up as an example which must be followed."

Acting as the players’ spokesman Anouma said: "Mr. President, the players have asked me to tell you that what they most want now is for our divided country to become one again. They want this victory to act as a catalyst for peace in Côte d'Ivoire, to put an end to the conflict and reunite its people. This success must bring us together".

The players have hoped that they could lead by example. Drogba and defender Kolo Toure play for top English Premiership teams Chelsea and Arsenal, and they both live in London. Yet, they come from opposite corners of Ivory Coast.

Drogba hails from a poor Catholic section of Abidjan, the capital. He and his family left when he was five.

Toure, on the other hand, is a Muslim and the son of an army officer who lived in the northern part of the country until he was 20.

"Our National team has brought people together," Toure told The Sunday Times of London. "When we qualified for the world Cup, Didier spoke to the people and told them we need to be together. He said 'Kolo is from the north and I’m from the south. But look we're friends and we work together for our country.' Our team has different cultures, language and religions to it, yet we come together and we win."

As good and as well balanced as Ivory Coast is -- it is considered the best of the five African sides -- it still might not be able to get to the second round. That's because the team finds itself in this Cup's Group of Death: the Netherlands, Argentina and Serbia & Montenegro.

"We may be up against it, but we will give it our best shot," defender Cyril Domoraud was quoted by World Soccer.

"If Ivory Coast can get out of the group, I can see them getting all the way to the final," German World Cup Organizing Committee president Franz Beckenbauer said.

The star of the show is Drogba, who joined Chelsea in July 2004 for $45 million transfer from Marseille (France), the second largest in English soccer history. Drogba scored a team-best nine qualifying goals, including two key goals in a key victory over Egypt.

He also managed to find the back of the net to give the Elephants the lead in a 1-1 international friendly draw with Italy in November and forced the Italians' vaunted defense to work overtime.

"We have played against a team with valuable players," Italy coach Marcello Lippi told the Press Association. "Drogba is an outstanding player. . . . It was important for us to get to know this new football reality that is the Ivory Coast."

Inter defender Marco Materazzi, who covered Drogba, realized what he was in for early in the match. "When you find yourself facing players like him (Drogba), it means that you are playing at the highest level and this is a good thing," he said.

Other players to watch include 24-year-old Toure, whose experience playing with Arsenal has been invaluable in terms of shoring up the shaky backline. His younger brother Yaya Toure (Olympiakos, Greece) patrols the midfield along with Didier Zokora, who was nicknamed Maestro by his teammates. World Soccer said that Zokora has the potential to be Africans next great holding midfielder.

In contrast to several other Germany-bound sides, the Elephants acquitted themselves quite well in the African Nations Cup in the winter of 2006, earning second-place honors to host Egypt, which outlasted Ivory Coast after 120 scoreless minutes and a 4-2 penalty-kick tie-breaker in the final.

Coach Henri Michel, whose side will face Argentina, Holland and Serbia & Montenegro in their group in Germany this summer, said: 'I'm very proud of the team and everything we've done," Michel was quoted by FIFAWorldCup.com "In the second half we had good chances and at that time, the Egyptians were dead physically.

"But when you've got chances, you have to take them."

Including the civil war, this team has been through more than enough personal tragedy.

Aruna Dindane, Drogba's strike partner who scored two of his seven qualifying goals in the clinching win over the Sudan, missed a good chunk of the African Nations Cup after the sudden death of one of his twin daughters in January. He was forced to leave the team for two weeks.

Two years ago, assistant coach and Mama Ouattara, also head coach of the youth team, died in Paris on June 12, 2004 due to an apparent heart attack at age 54.

A bit of interesting information for World Cup history buffs

Senegal made the biggest impact of any African country making its World Cup debut, reaching the quarterfinals. Playing under the spotlight of the opening match in 2002, the African side stunned defending champion France, 1-0, in Korea. Senegal finished second in its group to Denmark with a 1-0-2 record. The Senegalese squeaked past Sweden in extra-time, 2-1, in the second round, before Turkey turned the tables on the Africans with a 1-0 extra-time quarterfinal triumph.