Didier Drogba: Portrait of a Hero by John McShane

Author:John McShane [McShane, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Fame, Football, Soccer, Sport
ISBN: 9781844544158
Amazon: 1844545903
Publisher: John Blake
Published: 2007-09-27T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

A Nation’s Hero

Didier Drogba is admired in Europe for his rampaging performances in the shirts of first Marseilles and then Chelsea. But that fame is totally eclipsed by the adoration he inspires in the population of the Ivory Coast. By the time he flew to Abidjan at the end of March 2005, civil war had been tearing the country apart for three years and, on top of the military and financial plight the country was in, AIDS was becoming endemic, with at least seven per cent of the population suffering from related illnesses. The life expectancy for men was below fifty. It is at times like these, with existence so hard, that people seek heroes to lift them above their daily torment, and in Didier they had found one. The country’s blossoming football talents and the generation of fine players representing the Elephants gave Ivorians a reason to be proud, and none made them walk taller than him.

World soccer experts had for some years recognised the growing influence on African nations in the global power game and many of the top clubs in Europe had Africans in their side, but no national team had yet established itself as a major force. Cameroon were probably the nearest to that category, and they were in the same tough group, Group 3, fighting to get to Germany the next summer as were Didier and his compatriots.

The teams had already met once and in the game at Yaoundé in Cameroon two goals in the final ten minutes from Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’o and then Guy Feutchine had been a body blow to the Ivorians. True, they had beaten the other four teams in the group – Libya, Egypt, Benin and Sudan – whereas Cameroon were dropping points in these games, but the loss to Cameroon was a significant one. Didier knew that, as the nations prepared for the second ‘leg’ of the group ties, there was no room for complacency against little Benin – known as ‘the Squirrels’ – as only the top team in each group was to go to Germany.

He had spoken to fans shortly before the match, pointing out that his years in both the Ivory Coast and France meant he was ‘part of two cultures’ and when a few months earlier anti-French rioters spilled out onto the streets the scenes made him ‘feel the country had gone back ten years’. The demarcation line between the north and south, and the various religious and tribal differences affected all the Ivorians, but Didier’s views were simple: ‘The national team is a reflection of what the Ivory Coast should be and what it was. I come from a certain ethnic background, Kolo Touré and Aruna Dindane from another. We don’t try to avoid each other, far from it – there’s no tension at all.

‘We know the image we put out is important for Ivorian people, and it makes you happy that when you are playing for the national team, nobody will be out on the streets.

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