Aspire’s squad was one of the youngest in the tournament, at least on paper. It was composed of Football Dreams players found during the second and third years of the program, as well as a smattering of Qataris who didn’t get much playing time. The absence of players from the first class meant that once again Ibrahima had to cope without Diawandou’s leadership on the field. But this time, he wasn’t concerned. He thought the Red Devils were the ones who should be worried, given the run of form he had been on over the last year.
The streak started in the spring of 2010 when Aspire won its first major tournament in Italy, thanks to a dozen goals by Ibrahima that earned him the award for top scorer. He followed that up in the fall by taking on the goal-scoring burden for Senegal as the country achieved its historic qualification for the Africa Cup of Nations. A few months later, Aspire traveled to Spain in the spring of 2011 for the Mediterranean International Cup, a big youth tournament started by Colomer over a decade earlier that attracted top teams from around the world. Once again, Ibrahima terrorized defenders and led the tournament in goals scored. Although his team lost 2-1 to Espanyol in the semifinals, the tournament’s head scout called the big striker “a treasure” and identified him as one of the brightest lights in the competition. “He is a tall player, but coordinated and fast and . . . good with his head,” the scout told a local radio station.
Ibrahima was on fire at the Milk Cup as well. He scored six goals in four games to help put Aspire in the final. Their opponent, Manchester United, made it to the last match with a 1-0 victory over the previous champions, Étoile Lusitana, an academy founded by José Mourinho in Dakar when he was the coach of Inter Milan. Aspire coasted into the final with a much more dramatic win against Desportivo Brasil, a team from São Paulo that would go on to win the tournament the next year. But in 2011, Aspire stopped them dead in their tracks with a 6-1 demolition that included a hat trick from Ibrahima, so it’s no wonder he felt confident as he stared out at Manchester United’s players in their iconic red and white uniforms, waiting for the final to kick off.
It didn’t take long for Ibrahima to establish his authority once the referee blew his whistle. In the seventh minute, Cedric Tchoutou, a speedy winger from Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, raced past Manchester United’s left back a few yards outside the penalty box and whipped in a cross just before he reached the end line. Ibrahima sprinted between two defenders at the near post and powered a header into the far corner, leaving the keeper no chance. “Great finish from Dramé!” said the BBC announcer. The striker ran to give Cedric a hug and high-fived his teammates. But the look on his face was all business. The goal meant Ibrahima was tied for the golden boot award as the tournament’s leading scorer, but sharing the prize wasn’t in his game plan.
Fifteen minutes later, one of Aspire’s defenders played a long ball across the field to Cedric, who controlled it with one touch and slid a pass into Ibrahima’s path between two Manchester United players. The big striker ran onto the ball near the top right corner of the six-yard box and managed to blast it past the keeper at the near post, even though he had a defender on his heels lunging to make a tackle. “What a ball and what a finish!” the announcer exclaimed. Aspire’s coaches were on their feet at the sideline, high-fiving and applauding along with the crowd. “It’s a long way back for the Red Devils at this stage,” the announcer said.
Not far enough for Ibrahima. Three minutes later, he made it a hat trick and allowed himself a quick smile for the first time. “Well, well, well, the scouts will be looking at this big fella,” the announcer said. “He’s a happy man.” This time the cross came in from the left thanks to a Nigerian midfielder, Innocent Shoja. Ibrahima overpowered the defender marking him, and headed the ball with so much force from about six yards out that it whizzed just under the crossbar before the keeper could even get his arm up. “Good attacking of the ball by the big striker!” the announcer said. The keeper picked himself up off the ground with a dejected look on his face, and the announcer wondered just how much worse it could get for the Red Devils. “This could be embarrassing for Manchester United,” the announcer said. “I think it’s a long time since they have been in this sort of situation. We’ve still got ten minutes left in the first half, and already it’s game, set, match.”
The announcer was right. It would get worse. Twenty minutes into the second half, Ibrahima controlled a throw-in with his chest near the top of the penalty box and deftly pirouetted around a player on his back. He made it past a second defender with a lucky rebound off the player’s leg and slid the ball to a teammate running onto goal. The keeper managed to block the first shot but couldn’t keep out the second from Babacar Ndoye, the sprightly Senegalese winger who had scored in the playoff game against Ghana in Dakar. He sprinted toward the sideline in celebration, cupped his right ear, and leaned toward the crowd to get them to cheer even louder. Manchester United got a consolation goal a few minutes later, but there was enough time left for Aspire to add one more from close range thanks to a diminutive Cameroonian midfielder, Oumarou Kaina. “This is now a rout,” said the announcer, as the game wound down with the score an astounding 5-1 in Aspire’s favor.
Finally, much to Manchester United’s relief, the referee blew the whistle, sparking wild celebrations by Ibrahima and his teammates. With gold medals dangling from their necks, the players danced around as young women working at the tournament poured plastic jugs of milk over their heads. The liquid glistened under the stadium floodlights as it flowed over their dark skin and jerseys. A couple players hammed it up for the camera, biting their medals as if to check they were real gold. A final photo shows the team on the pitch crowded around the large silver trophy they won. Ibrahima stands tall in the back, smiling broadly as milk drips from his face. Above his head, he holds the trophy he won as the tournament’s top scorer, a white and gold cleat set on a wooden base. It was the third time in as many tournaments that Ibrahima had been the standout player, and his name was splashed across newspaper headlines the next day. “Dazzling Ibrahima Dramé is too hot for Manchester United’s stunned young guns,” said the Belfast Telegraph.
Although some people suspected Ibrahima and his teammates were quite a bit older than they said they were, that didn’t stop scouts at the tournament from flocking to Aspire’s head coach, Michael Browne, to find out how they could get their hands on the Senegalese striker and his teammates. “Clubs were approaching me saying, ‘What is happening to these boys?’ ” said Browne. “I was saying, ‘Look, they are not going anywhere. They are going to be part of the Aspire setup. You are wasting your time asking if you can take them on trial.’ ” The coach made sure the players knew the drill as well. “We said, ‘Look, this is the reality. You cannot legitimately go and sign for a club until you are 18. People might be telling you all these stories, but at the end of the day, don’t believe everything people tell you.’ ”
The Football Dreams kids after winning the Milk Cup in 2011.
Bases covered, or so he thought. But promises of fame and fortune were difficult for the players to ignore, especially those who came from the most desperate backgrounds and knew success would radically transform the lives of their families back in Africa. That didn’t mean they trusted every scout or agent who approached them. They knew Browne was right when he told them not to believe all the stories strangers were selling. But what if the salesman wasn’t a stranger? Browne and others at Aspire never anticipated the threat from within.
One of the team’s coaches at the Milk Cup was Arnold Rijsenburg, a former professional player from the tiny South American country of Suriname who had spent most of his career in Belgium. He stuck around after his playing career ended and worked as a youth coach at a couple of Belgium’s top clubs, Anderlecht and Standard Liège, where he trained future stars like Romelu Lukaku and Marouane Fellaini before they moved on to bigger money in England’s Premier League. Aspire sought to capitalize on this experience and recruited him to work as a coach in the
fall of 2008.
Like all the staff who accompanied the Aspire kids to the Milk Cup, Rijsenburg was based in Doha, not Senegal. But the players knew him from regular trips to Qatar, and he had grown closer to them during the tournament, especially Ibrahima. With his dark complexion, Rijsenburg likely seemed a more familiar face to the Football Dreams kids than many of the Western European coaches working for Aspire. He also spoke French, so he could easily communicate with players like Ibrahima from Francophone West Africa, which further cemented the connection. But Rijsenburg didn’t plan on staying at Aspire much longer. He had notified the academy shortly before the Milk Cup that he would not be renewing his contract.
A few hours after Ibrahima’s triumphant tournament victory, he was relaxing in his hotel room with his good friend Fallou Niang when he heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Rijsenburg. Although he wasn’t expecting the coach, he wasn’t surprised to see him either. Ibrahima knew why he had come. Even before the tournament started, Rijsenburg had pulled Ibrahima aside and told him he should think about leaving the academy early to try his luck in Europe. Rijsenburg said he had the connections to help. Strikers who rack up goals are the sport’s kings, after all, and attract the most interest from clubs. Rijsenburg again talked to Ibrahima about leaving after he scored a hat trick in the Milk Cup semifinal and was now at the player’s door once more.
At least that’s how Ibrahima tells the story. Rijsenburg provided a different version of events. He said it was actually Ibrahima and several other boys who approached him to find a way to Europe, not the other way around. He insisted he had no intention of trying to make money and simply wanted to help the players get to European clubs because he thought it would be better for their development, even though academy officials had made it clear that the African players were off-limits.
There’s no disputing what happened next, though. Rijsenburg introduced Ibrahima to an agent at the tournament, Nenad Petrovic, who had expressed an interest in the big striker. Petrovic worked with a former Anderlecht player, Bertrand Crasson, and both of them were familiar with Football Dreams because they had traveled to Doha a few months earlier with Anderlecht’s general manager, Herman Van Holsbeeck. While they were at Aspire, they met with Rijsenburg and Andreas Bleicher. Now they were in Ballymena, looking to pry away one of the program’s most promising stars, as well as several of his teammates. “They said, ‘We need you after the tournament,’ ” said Ibrahima. “ ‘We can bring you to the big teams in Europe. You cannot sit in the academy and wait. Aspire cannot make all the players professionals. Now you need to leave to have a new life.’ ”
Ibrahima had been approached by scouts and agents before. Many of the Football Dreams players had. After powering his team to victory in Italy in 2010, several people representing Italian teams introduced themselves to Ibrahima as he wandered about town. One of the coaches from the academy in Senegal, Jordi Rovira, usually kept a close eye on the players and intervened whenever he saw one of the kids being targeted. But Rovira, Colomer, and the others from Senegal were absent from the Milk Cup.
One of the reasons the players were interested in leaving the academy was that they were increasingly jealous of Colomer’s close relationship with the kids in the first class, especially Diawandou, and were worried he wouldn’t do as much to help them strike it big in Europe. Nobody felt this more acutely than Ibrahima. The smile on his face as he raised the golden boot award at the Milk Cup disguised a deep malaise. Before the tournament, Ibrahima often complained to his teammates that no matter what they did, they never received the kind of praise and attention Colomer bestowed on the first class. That feeling only intensified after the win in Northern Ireland when the striker again failed to hear from the Spanish scout, a pattern that increasingly upset him after his accomplishments over the past year. “I went to Spain and took best player and scored so many goals, but Colomer didn’t tell me congratulations,” said Ibrahima. “He didn’t say anything. In Italy, it was the same. In Ireland, the same.”
Ibrahima was worried that the lack of attention meant Colomer didn’t value him highly enough as a player. That concern deepened shortly before the Milk Cup when the Spanish scout gathered the entire academy for a meeting in one of the classrooms at Diambars and told them he was sending two Ghanaian players home, Adama Issah and Abraham Anang. They were the first players officially kicked out of the program, since Aspire maintained Bernard left on his own. Colomer said he was sending the pair home because Adama had suffered a string of persistent injuries and Abraham had disciplinary issues.
Ibrahima and his teammates were too shocked to say much during the meeting but left angry and upset, worried they might be sent home themselves at some point and find their dreams of becoming a European star dashed forever. “It was so bad for me, for all the boys, because I never thought Colomer would say that,” said Ibrahima. “He sent them back to their country to start their life again. That’s so difficult. They lost everything. I was thinking if it was me, what would happen? If it was me, he would do the same. I said OK, I need to leave Aspire because if I don’t leave Aspire now, tomorrow I could go like that.”
Ibrahima was thus inclined to take the agent, Petrovic, up on his offer at the Milk Cup. But he wanted to run the idea by his old coach in Ziguinchor, Amadou Traoré, so he borrowed a phone, grabbed his friend Fallou, who was also thinking of leaving, and dialed Traoré’s number in Senegal. At first, his old coach was reluctant to endorse the idea since he figured Ibrahima had a good thing going at the academy. “He said, ‘Cool down. Don’t make any decision until you come back here,’ ” said Fallou. It was a sensitive issue for Traoré because Football Dreams was a family affair. The program’s country director in Senegal, Lamine Savané, was his cousin.
But Ibrahima was insistent and told his old coach the situation at Aspire wasn’t as good as it seemed. “He said the head of the academy had special boys he wanted to help,” said Traoré. No matter how many goals he scored, Ibrahima was sure he would never have the kind of relationship with Colomer that Diawandou did. The players had become good friends, but that wasn’t enough to stave off pangs of jealousy and concern about his place in the academy’s pecking order. Ibrahima never shared these feelings with Diawandou or Colomer, an act that may have taken the big striker down a different path. Instead, he decided it was better to leave and try his luck with someone he felt fully appreciated him. Ibrahima knew he would be giving up the money Aspire was sending his family, but that wasn’t going to last forever. This was the chance to earn much more and secure his family’s future for good.
Rijsenburg called Traoré as well, and the Senegalese coach eventually told Ibrahima he agreed with his plan to leave the academy. “He said, ‘OK, if you know it’s good and they will take you to a team, then it’s better for you to leave,’ ” said Ibrahima. Traoré likely had his own interests in mind as well. Like Bernard’s coach in Ghana, Traoré wasn’t clear what kind of money he would get from Aspire if Ibrahima made it to Europe after graduating from the academy. “It’s a big problem,” the coach said. “If a player becomes a professional, the team the boy came from should benefit.” Traoré appreciated the free Nike equipment Aspire handed out every year, which included roughly a dozen balls and two dozen training bibs at each of the fields where they held tryouts, but he didn’t think it was enough to compensate him for giving up his best player.
Ibrahima kept in close touch with Rijsenburg and Petrovic after he returned to Ziguinchor for summer vacation at the beginning of August, and the Aspire coach told him Anderlecht was interested in signing him. It was an exciting prospect since Anderlecht is considered Belgium’s top club and was the launching point for Romelu Lukaku, a Belgian striker of Congolese heritage who hit it big in England’s Premier League. That was exactly the path Ibrahima dreamed of following. The two even had similar builds since Lukaku stood six feet, three inches tall, although Ibrahima had a bit more filling out to do to equal the Belgian striker’s commanding p
resence on the field.
By this point, roughly half a dozen other Football Dreams players were planning on leaving, including Ibrahima’s friend Fallou. But Fallou called only a week before Ibrahima was scheduled to travel to Belgium to tell him he wouldn’t be going after all. His father had vetoed the plan and told him it was better to stay at the academy. Ibrahima was disappointed but remained committed to his decision to leave. He didn’t get any resistance from his parents, who were nervous but put their faith in Traoré and let him figure out the best path for their son’s career.
Traoré wanted to make a clean getaway without tipping off Aspire and told Ibrahima’s mother to say she knew nothing if anyone from the academy contacted her. But Ibrahima didn’t feel comfortable sneaking away, so he sent a text message to the country director, Savané, before he and Traoré boarded the overnight ferry to Dakar to catch their flight at the beginning of September. Ibrahima told Savané he was headed to Europe and wouldn’t be returning to the academy. All hell broke loose as Aspire panicked about losing one of their best players. They grew even more alarmed when they realized Ibrahima wasn’t the only one jumping ship. The day that he and Traoré traveled to Dakar was supposed to be the start of the academy’s fall term, and several other kids were missing as well.
Savané called Traoré when the coach arrived in the capital and requested he and Ibrahima come to his office to talk things over. Traoré agreed out of respect for his cousin but had no intention of changing his mind. The two of them argued for over an hour as Ibrahima sat silently and stared at the framed soccer and basketball jerseys on the office walls. Traoré eventually cut off the conversation, saying they were sticking with their decision, and rushed with Ibrahima to the Belgian Embassy, arriving just in time to get their visas to fly to Brussels that evening. They headed to Traoré’s sister’s house in Dakar afterward to prepare for their flight. But Aspire hadn’t given up. Savané showed up at the house with George Sagna, the Football Dreams sports director in Senegal, to make another push to get Ibrahima to stay.
The Away Game Page 18