The Unrelenting Honesty of Aliou Cissé
For fans of soccer, from the casual to the obsessed, along with a broader spectrum of those enamored by spectacle, the World Cup is a wellspring of joy. The rarity of it — every four years — plays only a part, the rest is a combination of the lows and highs of sport, exuberant and (mostly) benign patriotism, and pageantry of the greatest talent the world has developed since the last World Cup. Not even the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and its bumbling can dampen the festive flare of it all — and judging from this year’s, and 2022’s, hosts, world soccer’s premier governing body knows, and relies on, this fact.
In their 2018 World Cup debut, richly talented Senegal defeated a sturdy Polish side and kept their €200m-rated striker off the score sheet. Not only did the win represent the first victory of the tournament among the five African nations to qualify but, let Fox Sports’ in-game commentators tell it, it was one of the opening round’s best upsets.
Except there’s been an eagerness among many to watch this Senegal team take the pitch. With quality in midfield, a defense capable of suffocation, and an attack replete with goals — FIFA rankings be damned — Senegal needn’t fear anyone Poland wouldn’t fear. But whether by ignorance, laziness, or subterranean expectations, the underdog angle is always a safe one for commentary teams tasked with annotating matches involving African nations. Any team from Africa is always the feisty underdog, because, as the subtext reads, ‘[insert African team here]’s power and pace makes them formidable, but organization and superior tactics have the edge in a civilized contest.’
The furor of the event, the goals, the storylines, the players doing (and not doing) the amazing, and the daily barrage of games can all overload the senses. And as long as nothing egregious occurs, Russia as conspicuous host and the ignored terrible bits of global politics — colonizers and the colonized, aggressors and the sufferers, creators and despisers of immigrants and the seekers of refuge, takers and those made beggars — disappear.
The removal of discomfort is paramount for maximum profit, and we’re all expected to play our part. Despite the story France’s national team tells through the names on the backs of players’ shirts, or English defender Danny Rose telling his family to not risk the stay in Russia to support him at the World Cup, or Vladimir Putin reaching across FIFA President, Giovanni Infantino, to shake hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during the opening match of the World Cup — politics, global problems, and histories do not belong here.
Aliou Cissé, the 42-year-old ex-Paris Saint-Germain and Senegal National Team player, now manager, disagrees.
Before Cissé’s team had kicked a ball in official competition he had already made note of the fact that he’s the only black manager in a tournament meant to pit the world’s 32 best against one another. “Indeed I am the only black coach in this tournament, it’s a painful reality that annoys me,” he said to silence. “I believe that football is universal. I believe that skin color has little importance in the game.” His words both pointed to an ongoing and old-as-time result of systemic racism, and served as warning: Senegal, and Aliou Cissé in particular, weren’t going to allow themselves to be painted with a broad and banal brush.
Against Poland, Cissé’s men frustrated the European side’s midfield triangle of Piotr Zielinski, Grzegorz Krychowiak, and Arkadiusz Milik, forcing them to push the ball wide where Idrissa Gueye and Ismaïla Sarr on the right and Alfred N’Diaye and Sadio Mané on the left, would intercept the pass or trap and dispossess the Polish ballcarrier. The backline, helmed by Napoli’s star defender Kalidou Koulibaly, ensured any attack that leaked through was challenged. Robert Lewandwoski, Poland’s biggest threat and scorer of 41 goals this season for trophy-collecting powerhouse Bayern Munich, was held to just two shots (one on target) for the 90-plus-minutes.
After the match the Senegal head coach was asked to reflect on the team’s victory, and to perhaps provide the jovial quote to punctuate a pre-typed tale of a triumphant underdog. Instead, Aliou Cissé chose once again to offer perspective. “This is not the same taste as the France result in 2002. France colonized Senegal, so when we faced them it was quite exceptional. But this victory is just as important … [but] we’re not getting carried away.”
