Burkina Faso's risky gamble for success

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) -- Burkina Faso have taken a huge gamble just a week before the African Nations Cup kicks off by sacking Argentine coach Luis Oscar Fullone and replacing him with his assistant Jacques-Michel Yameogo.

Not that Yameogo is a stranger to the side. He has been Fullone's right-hand man since September when Fullone took over. But few teams react well when the man at the top is replaced so close to a big tournament.

Yameogo, who coached Burkina Faso to third place in last year's Under-17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago has been handed the job on a caretaker-basis, but will need to be more of a miracle-worker than a caretaker to improve Burkina's fortunes in such a short space of time.

The team head for Mali having won only one of their five warm-up matches. Not only that but they have been placed in a tough group that includes South Africa, Morocco and Ghana.

After a months' intensive training in Morocco, the mainly locally-based players have lost to Togo twice, and to Cameroon. Their one victory was in Senegal last month, but most put this down to a temporary lapse by the World Cup qualifiers, who used a makeshift team.

Burkina Faso, who do not have the stock of European stars many of their rivals can draw on, have still called up 14 players with European clubs, but only two hold down regular first team places and one of the best, Mamadou Zongo who plays in the Netherlands, is unavailable because of injury.

While the local players may find themselves out of their depth against European professionals, they performed well when brought on for the second half against Cameroon's star-studded line-up, with Ali Ouedarogo scoring Burkina's only goal in the 3-1 defeat.

"The foreign legion only arrived three days before the game and we haven't done much work with them," said Yameogo after the Cameroon match. "In any case, only those who show some fighting spirit on the pitch will be playing in the finals."

Despite the doubts and fears, nearly 2,000 Burkinabe supporters are ready for the trek to neighbouring Mali to support the "Stallions" -- even if the only people the team really scares are the fans themselves.

At the last Nations Cup finals, Burkina Faso failed to make it past the first round but when they hosted the tournament in 1998, they went all the way to the semifinals -- the best performance at the African championship by the Burkinabe to date.

 

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