La CAN is a factory of great stories. Coming out of a tough group, made up of Egypt, Togo and Kenya, the Comoros played on Monday the first match in their history in the African Cup of Nations once morest Gabon. To get there, it took an immeasurable feat for this small archipelago of four islands, stuck in the warm waters of the Mozambique Channel, between the mainland and the Big Island, Madagascar.
READ ALSOCAN 2022: everything you need to know regarding this 33e editing
The Comoros have come a long way. Very far. Recognized by Fifa since 2005, this country of only 870,000 inhabitants was still at the bottom of the abyss barely ten years ago. Eliminated without glory from qualifying for CAN 2012, the Comorian selection then had two blank years during which it was forced to forfeit due to lack of financial means. The team then went two years without playing and the coach at the time, Ali Mbaé Camara, ended up resigning. A terrible slump, heralding a deep upheaval.
READ ALSOCAN 2022: the favorites, the outsiders and the rookies
Because in 2014, the arrival of the Franco-Comorian Amir Abdou on the bench of the national team will upset the fate of the small selection. The “Coelacanths” – from the name of a fish living only in the archipelago – gradually managed to climb the ranks in the hierarchy of world football, from the 193e Fifa ranking in 2014 at 127e place in 2017 – their best result, today ranked 131e. It is true that if the first attempts were sometimes chaotic, the men of Amir Abdou made spectacular progress over the meetings. And under the leadership of the native of Marseille, the Comoros won the first official match in their history in March 2016 once morest Botswana. Rejected from the CAN 2017 and that of 2019, the archipelago wins once morest all odds its qualification for the CAN 2022, finishing second in its group, with the nose and beard of Kenya and Togo. The day of glory has come.
READ ALSOThe Monday tackle – We must respect the African Cup of Nations!
To achieve this feat, Amir Abdou patiently built a competitive team, drawing on the vast Comorian diaspora often established in the Marseille region where he himself comes from. Among the 28 players selected in its list, only seven were born in the Indian Ocean archipelago, the others were all born in France, and most (17/21) evolve in France. The coach, who has combined his functions since 2020 with those of coach of the Mauritanian club FC Nouadhibou (Mauritania), has the longest life on the bench of an African selection (8 years).
READ ALSOAfrica Cup of Nations: how CAN 2022 escaped him narrowly
With this historic qualification, he and his team landed in Cameroon with great ambitions despite an unfavorable draw: the Comoros inherited the “group of death”, also made up of Gabon (the match played on 10 was lost 0 -1 once morest Gabon), Morocco and Ghana. Le Petit Poucet dreams of a course like that of his neighbor Madagascar in 2019, which qualified for the first time in its history and managed to reach the quarter-finals of the competition. At home, hope is immense. The party is such that the president, Azali Assoumani, decided to exceptionally suspend sanitary measures to allow the country to celebrate the event as it should. Will the Comoros achieve another feat? Elements of response at the end of the group matches. The Comoros face on January 14 Morocco, already victorious over Ghana, and, on January 18, the Black Stars for whom this match will also be decisive.
