Bouna Time! Senegal’s Top Keeper Parties, so Colorado’s Coundoul Plays the Cup
By: Laurie | February 1st, 2008
French teams had 58 players in the African Cup of Nations. The English leagues had 42. (Although from their whining, you would have thought it was 4200.)
MLS, though? One player. Bouna Coundoul of the Colorado Rapids and Senegal.
Senegal was expected to do well in this tournament, and Bouna was the second-choice goalkeeper after Tony Sylva. Bouna was not expected to play.
And then Senegal finished its first two games with one draw and one loss. (The loss was partly a result of this Sylva blunder.) And Sylva was photographed at a nightclub in violation of curfew two nights before the final group stage game, along with teammates Ousmane Ndoye and perennial bad boy El Hadji Diouf.
The result? A suspension for the three miscreants, and a cap for our Bouna.
And he made the most of it. South Africa outplayed the Senegalese team pretty much from start to finish, but Senegal finished with the draw. This was largely due to some spectacular saves by Coundoul.
Perhaps MLS should be looking more to Africa for talent?
Here are the game highlights (if you watch quickly. These highlight videos are getting yanked regularly for broadcast right violations.) Watch at about :38, 1:07 and 1:16 for some nice Coundoul saves. And try to ignore the fact that the commentary and the picture don’t match up.
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Tags: Africa, African Cup of Nations, Bouna Coundoul, Colorado Rapids, MLS, Senegal, Tony Sylva, World FootballSubscribe
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Or at least to African immigrants- Bouna’s been in the US since he was 14, I believe, and played high school and college soccer in New York.
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You’re right, Abby. Interesting point. By fourteen, most players have already learned a lot of their skills. Bouna is probably an interesting combination of the African and the American, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It’s just that in watching the tournament these past couple of weeks I’ve seen so much talent and found myself wondering why MLS doesn’t tap into it more.
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United States -
It’s money. MLS-quality players from Africa can–and will–make more money in France, Belgium, or Norway. Considering the socioeconomic condition of a strong majority of people on that continent, one cannot really blame a player choosing Troyes or Nantes over MLS.
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United States
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