Senegal are drawn to play the opening game against France
Simon Kuper
We can already predict most of the next World Cup: the vilification of the coaches, footballers disgruntled at missing their summer holiday, and one of the five usual suspects winning the trophy.
In fact, it will be such a familiar event that we will probably know nearly all of the 32 qualifiers from other World Cups. This means that the most exciting team in Japan and Korea could be Senegal, who play the opening game against defending champions France on May 31.
Not only has the West African country of nine million people never played in a World Cup before, but it missed the 1994 competition because it forgot to enter. After Senegal’s Lions beat Namibia 5-0 in Windhoek to qualify, even the country’s minister of sport was in tears.
The streets of Dakar, the Senegalese capital, were even more thronged than usual with hooting cars and motorbikes. President Abdoulaye Wade told the nation: “We have entered the era of a Senegal that wins.” Wade was on a visit to Europe, presenting the leaders of the G8 with a new plan to develop Africa, but returned in a hurry to meet the team. This made for an interesting story.
Wade, who was elected last year after 25 years in opposition, decided that he should fly into Senegal together with his footballers. The only problem was that they were coming from Namibia and he from Paris, which is the second home of most African leaders. The solution: Wade and the players would meet in Mauritania and travel to Dakar together.
The players were told the happy news at a stopover in Libreville, Gabon. Hoping to rush home to see their families before returning to their clubs in Europe the next night, they were displeased to hear they would be going to another country altogether. On landing in Nouakchott in Mauritania, some of them refused to leave the plane. One player said he would spend the day at the airport rather than the hotel.
Eventually the minister of sport won them over, and they flew home with the president. Arriving in Dakar on Sunday afternoon, they were greeted by the Senegalese government, Parliament, military leaders and several thousand people who had slept the night at the airport.
The 25km drive from the airport to the presidential palace took four hours, through roads thronged with crowds. President Wade addressed the players at length about Senegal’s previous triumphs in basketball, karate and Scrabble, and made each of them a knight in the national order of the Lion (an honour that by this time was richly deserved). They had, he said, improved the country’s brand image.
Quite. This is a country famous chiefly for its musicians, whose football team’s previous zenith had been victory in the Friendship Games in Dakar of 1963. In Namibia, the Senegalese were awed to be training on the field of a fourth-division side that boasted actual grass; there are only a couple of grass pitches in all of Senegal.
Even the main Senegalese news- paper Le Soleil admitted that qualifying for the World Cup from a group containing Egypt, Morocco and Algeria was “un hold-up”. So how on earth did they do it?
First, there is the impromptu mushrooming of football academies in Senegal. It was discovered in 1999 that there were 160 football training centres registered in the country. These are effectively companies aiming to produce good footballers for sale to Europe.
This will be called “slavery” as if the boys were being sent across the ocean in chains to work for free but the academies seem to be doing well. One alone, Aldo Gentina, has produced five of the current Senegalese squad.
Then there is the success of France, the destination for most of these players. Senegal has about 15 current internationals playing in the French league more than France does. It has thus profited from having most of its players in the same place, in a league that is getting better every year, with many of them playing in the same teams, at Lens, Sedan and Rennes. The coach, Bruno Metsu, is a Frenchman, and his fast, hard working, disciplined team are somewhat reminiscent of the French side of five years ago.
They even have their own Thierry Henry. In three recent games for Senegal, the 20-year-old El Hadj Diouf scored eight goals. Diouf, an occasional striker with Lens, who has a lion tattooed on his arm and an unfortunate habit of debating with referees, may be better known after the World Cup. Certainly the country will.
It is a shame that Senegal will travel to Japan and Korea without their best player. Patrick Vieira, born in Dakar 25 years ago, will be representing the Other France.