JULY 29, 2018 • THE WEEK 57The Drogba saga
Legendary Ivory Coast striker
Didier Drogba had moved to
France at a very young age.
Although he represented Ivory
Coast for 12 years, becoming
their all-time leading goalscorer
and the captain of the national
team, he chose not to settle
down there. He preferred to live
where his club career took him,
from France to England and now
the US, with brief stints in China,
Turkey and Canada, despite the
fame he enjoys in Ivory Coast
The 40-year-old is still a
national hero in Ivory Coast.
Drogba took the initiative
and collected funds to build a
hospital in Abidjan, the city of
his birth.Raising the bar
The arrival of immigrant play-
ers improved the quality of the
European leagues. But it raised
concerns about them hampering
the development of local players,
and damaging the prospects of
the national team. This concern
was most prevalent in England
because of the infl ux of foreign
players into the Premier League
in the early 1990s.
Nearly three decades later,
however, the children of these
immigrants, born and brought up
in England, have started playing
for England. These players have
proved their worth at Russia
- The future also looks
bright. England won the Under-17
and the Under-20 World Cups in - And, players of immigrant
background played a major role
in both these triumphs.
AFPago. “I decided not to go,” he said.
“But, I am proud of my Moroccan
heritage.” Th e majority of the Belgian
team speaks Dutch. Th e others speak
French. But they talk in English in
the dressing room and any of the
three languages on the fi eld as per
convenience.
Mbappe, who became the fi rst
teenager since Pele in 1958 to score
two goals in a World Cup match and
to score in the fi nal, is the pride of
the country now. Son of a Cameroo-
nian father and an Algerian mother,
Mbappe was born in one of the poor-
est neighbourhoods of Paris, after
the French triumph in 1998. One of
the team’s biggest stars, midfi eld-
er Paul Pogba, has Guinean roots.
Defender Presnel Kimpembe’s father
is from Congo and mother is from
Haiti. Other players with immigrant
backgrounds include: defender Sam-
uel Umtiti (Cameroon), midfi elder
N’Golo Kante (Mali), forward Ous-
mane Dembele (Mauritian-Senega-
lese and Malian descent), midfi elder
Blaise Matuidi (Angolan-Congolese)
and forward Nabil Fekir (Algeria). In
total, there were 15 players of immi-
grant background, and three others of
mixed ethnicity: striker Olivier Giroud
(Italian descent), left-back Lucas
Hernandez (Spanish descent) and
forward Antoine Griezmann (German
descent).
Nine members of the England
squad had Caribbean roots. Winger/
forward Raheem Sterling moved
from Jamaica to England at the
age of fi ve with his mother and
three siblings, three years after his
father was killed. If the deciding
factor behind Brexit was the youth,
they also gave title hopes to the
England team in 2018. Th e average
age of the team, which fi nished
fourth, was 26. Striker, captain and
Golden Boot winner, Harry Kane
is of Irish descent. Forward Danny
Welbeck is of Ghanaian descent
and midfi elder Dele Alli’s father is
Nigerian. Midfi elder Eric Dier, though
born in England, is a product of the
Portuguese youth system. He came
up through the ranks of Cristiano
Ronaldo’s former team Sporting
Lisbon. Right-back Trent Alexander-
Arnold was also eligible to play for
the United States. Many of them have
seen hard times growing up. Coach
Gareth Southgate said his team was a
microcosm of the London society and
that they were trying to create a new
English identity.
While Belgium was getting ready
to play the round of 16, there was a
conference of European leaders in
Brussels to discuss the immigration
crisis. Th e leaders were of the opinion
that Europe did not want any more
immigrants. Th e tentative under-
standing reached was that the im-
migrants would be put in temporary
camps and those who could prove
that they required permanent rehabil-
itation would be moved to countries
which were willing to accept them.
But Europe is not ready to accept all
those who are escaping from crisiszones. It leads to certain questions:
Is the love Europe has for its players
of immigrant background genuine? If
Lukaku does not score, he becomes
a Congolese. So why are people from
Congo moving to Belgium? Have the
Belgians who fi nd fault with Lukaku
forgotten that Belgium had colonised
Congo for 52 years and exploited its
resources?
Whether the love of Europeans for
footballers of immigrant background
is genuine or not, there are winds of
change blowing in Africa. Centuries
ago, European missionaries had
brought football to Africa. But, they
would not have expected such a har-
vest of footballing talent in the 21st
century from their eff orts.