Afcon 2023: Ivory Coast's legacy for producing homegrown stars a fading memory

Once a hotbed for nurturing superstar players, Africa Cup of Nations turn to diaspora for road ahead

Ivory Coast coach Jean-Louis Gasset will be relying on players like Willy Boly who have developed overseas. AFP

To find tranquility in Abidjan, it’s best to head for the banks of the lagoon. To find the heart of Ivory Coast’s most popular sport, or at least the motor that has driven the country’s football, go to the eastern edge of the Ebrie.

Here are the headquarters of ASEC Mimosas, the nation’s most celebrated club with an academy that not so long ago would have been deemed among the world’s most productive. Scan the roll of honour as you enter the site’s patchwork of pitches, classrooms and dormitories , and you’ll see listed the Toure bothers, Kolo and Yaya, the latter the great galvaniser of Manchester City’s modern rise and a European club champion with Barcelona.

There are the Kalous, too, Salomon, a Champions League winner with Chelsea, and his brother Bonaventure, later of Paris Saint-Germain. There’s Gervinho, later of Arsenal. There’s Didier Zokora, the most capped player for Ivory Coast’s national team and an asset to the midfields of various European clubs after he made the familiar journey abroad from ASEC.

There will be more recent ASEC graduates, though less feted, among those representing the national team on Saturday at the new Olympic Stadium in Epimbe for the opening match of the Africa Cup of Nations, the first hosted in Ivory Coast for 40 years. It's a major chance for The Elephants, as they are nicknamed, to repeat their lone Afcon triumph, the 2015 victory that endorsed the so-called golden generation of Ivorian players, a high concentration of them brought through the ASEC hothouse.

If the champion side of the Toures and the younger Kalou, of Didier Drogba – a superstar whose football upbringing was largely in France – casts an imposing shadow, they also represent a different time, when the pathway between homegrown excellence and the top of the sport ran smoother. Ivory Coast has in the last decade lost its pre-eminent place among the nurseries of African talent. It now looks enviously at near neighbours like Senegal for how youth football is being run.

The enduring truth that almost none of the best African prospects stay in Africa for long – the comparative financial rewards for moving to Europe, or the Gulf, are vast – remains, but more and more leading players for the Elephants have also done their apprenticeships outside Africa. Of the 27 selected in Ivory Coast’s squad by head coach Jean-Louis Gasset for this Afcon, less than half came through Ivorian academies.

Sebastien Haller is among the core group of Ivory Coast players who have not come through their system. AFP

Partly that’s because, like other heavyweights such as Morocco, Ivory Coast have determinedly sought potential internationals from the country’s diaspora, players of Ivorian heritage who were born or grew up in Europe. The spine of Gasset’s best XI, from centre-forward Sebastien Haller, of Borussia Dortmund, through midfielder Seko Fofana, of Al Nassr, to central defender Willy Boly, of Nottingham Forest, all represented France at youth level.

Fifa rules on switching national team have eased in the past 10 years, and several African countries have been beneficiaries of the lighter regulations. But there is a risk that expatriate hiring also loosens the bond with supporters, with the locale.

Viewed from the academies of Africa, it can look like evidence their students are at an ever greater disadvantage, that a schoolboy player learning how to be a professional is on a faster track to the professional elite at a high-spec European academy than at home.

ASEC can feel like an island in treacherous territory. While the methods and learnings within the academy may be rigorous, there is no coherent youth league for the players to compete in. Coaches there bemoan the haphazard fixture list their young players have to contend with.

“You never know if your age-group team are going to playing against a side filled with players older than they say they are,” one tells The National. At senior level, ASEC, who were African club champions at the end of the 1990s, have, like Ivorian clubs generally, made a steadily reducing impact in pan-African club competitions.

Ivory Coast win 2015 Afcon - in pictures

Dancers perform during the opening ceremonies of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final between Ivory Coast and Ghana on Sunday night in Equatorial Guinea. Issouf Sanogo / AFP

Fireworks explode over the stadium in Bata, Equatorial Guinea during the Africa Cup of Nations final opening ceremonies on Sunday night before Ivory Coast and Ghana battled for continental supremacy. Khaled Desouki / AFP

Ivory Coast fans prepare for their team's Africa Cup of Nations final against Ghana on Sunday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Luc Gnago / Reuters

Ghanaian fans cheer for their team ahead of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final match against Ivory Coast in Bata, Equatorial Guinea on Sunday. Carl de Souza / AFP

Ghana midfielder Andre Ayew, right, challenges Ivory Coast defender Serge Aurier during the Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday night. Khaled Desouki / AFP

Ghana's Mubarak Wakaso, left, challenges Ivory Coast's Gervinho during the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday in Equatorial Guinea. Mike Hutchings / Reuters

Ivory Coast forward Wilfried Bony, right, misses his penalty during the shootout against Ghana in the Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday. Ivory Coast missed their first two shots, before Ghana missed their third and fourth shots, and the Ivorians eventually won the shootout 9-8. Khaled Desouki / AFP

Goalkeeper Boubacar Barry of Ivory Coast, right, makes a save to give his team the edge against Ghana on Sunday in the Africa Cup of Nations final. Barry Aldworth / EPA

Ivory Coast keeper Boubacar Barry shoots and scores the winning penalty in the 9-8 shootout victory over Ghana on Sunday in the Africa Cup of Nations final in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. Barry Aldworth / EPA

Ivory Coast players, from left to right, Siaka Tiene, Yaya Toure, Serey Doumbia, Kolo Toure and Serey Die react in celebration at the end of the penalty shootout win over Ghana in the Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday. Gavin Barker / EPA

Ivory Coast's Wilfried Bony carries goalkeeper Boubacar Barry on his shoulders as they celebrate with forward Gervinho after winning the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final against Ghana. Carl de Souza / AFP

Afriyie Acquah of Ghana cries into his shirt after his team lose the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final against Ivory Coast on Sunday. Gavin Barker / EPA

Serey Die of Ivory Coast, above, celebrates with teammate Serge Aurier, below, after they win the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final in Bata, Equatorial Guinea on Sunday. Gavin Barker / EPA

Yaya Toure holds aloft the Africa Cup of Nations trophy after Ivory Coast's win in the final against Ghana on Sunday. Gavin Barker / EPA

Supporters of Ivory Coast celebrate in the streets of Abidjan on Sunday after their team beat Ghana in the Africa Cup of Nations final. Legnan Koula / EPA

Ghana's Andre Ayew, centre, is comforted by keeper Razak Brimah, left, and Asamoah Gyan, right, after their loss in the Africa Cup of Nations final to Ivory Coast on Sunday. Issouf Sanogo / AFP

Ivory Coast's captain Yaya Toure raises the trophy after winning the Africa Cup of Nations final against Ghana on Sunday. Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters

The impulse for talent to leave young, pursuing contracts abroad, partly explains that. The superclubs of the continent’s richer leagues – Egypt, the Maghreb and South Africa – tend to dominate the African Champions League, but there is still nostalgia at ASEC for the days their young sides, plucked from the academy, could hold their own across Africa.

There is a residual pride in how the leadership qualities of their most celebrated graduates are now being realised, post-retirement as players. Yaya Toure is at the Asian Cup, as assistant coach to Roberto Mancini with Saudi Arabia’s national team. Bonaventure Kalou has served for the last five years as mayor of Vavoua, in central Ivory Coast.

And there is eager anticipation at how the Elephants’ homegrown talents dovetail with expatriate expertise at Saturday's first assignment, against Guinea-Bissau, of what the country hopes is a journey all the way to the final. Midfielder Oumar Diakite, 20, and striker Karim Konate, 19, are carrying the baton for ASEC’s academy, both transferred to RB Salzburg in Austria last season, both hopeful of making this Afcon a platform for their next big career step.