The rich professionals of Ivory Coast’s nationwide soccer group had been resting of their luxurious resort final week, getting ready for a match in Africa’s largest event, when Yaya Camara sprinted onto a dusty lot and started fizzing one go after one other to his buddies.
Again and again, he corralled the sport’s underinflated ball after which despatched it away once more along with his favourite soccer footwear: worn plastic sandals lengthy derided because the sneaker of the poor, however which he and his buddies put on as a badge of honor.
Shiny soccer cleats like his idols’? No thanks, stated Mr. Camara, a lean 18-year-old midfielder, as he wiped sweat from his forehead.
“How did the professionals begin taking part in after they had been children like us? With lêkê,” he added, referring to the sandals which are ubiquitous not solely in his pickup sport however nearly anywhere an Ivorian places their ft.
Whereas the perfect African groups run out in costly branded cleats at this 12 months’s continental soccer championship, the Africa Cup of Nations, it’s in lêkê (pronounced leh-keh) that newbie gamers craft the perfect road soccer.
They reward the cheaper sandals for his or her practicality — “They’re lighter, they match higher and so they’re extra snug the place we play,” as Mr. Camara put it — in video games that happen not on manicured grass fields in shiny new stadiums however on numerous sandy pitches, dusty courtyards and slender alleyways.
“Lêkê are the nationwide footwear of Ivory Coast,” stated Seydou Traoré, his ft resting inside an orange pair (the nationwide coloration) as he watched a nerve-racking match on a tv pulled into the road alongside dozens of neighbors and buddies. A lot of them wore lêkê, too.
It’s unclear how the shoe grew to become so well-liked in Ivory Coast. Most gamers stated that they had been carrying them since they had been toddlers. Faculty youngsters put on them to high school. They usually blossom on numerous ft when the streets of Abidjan fill with water through the wet season.
And whereas the jelly shoe has turn out to be stylish within the trend world in recent times, with luxurious manufacturers like Gucci making their very own model, they’re stylish in Ivory Coast for causes of each model and pragmatism.
“Other than within the workplace, you may put on them in every single place, even at a celebration,” stated Mr. Traoré, an newbie participant who as soon as competed in Ivory Coast’s second league.
Heels, costume footwear or leather-based sandals stay the favored footwear for the workplace in Ivory Coast, one in every of West Africa’s largest economies and residential to a dynamic center class. However the attraction of lêkê shone via few years in the past, when one of many nation’s most well-known singers turned businessman posed on the duvet of a method journal carrying a Western-style grey go well with and white plastic sandals.
The story goes that the jelly sandal was born in 1946, when a French knifemaker invented the unique mannequin as a manner to make use of a big batch of plastic he had ordered to make knives. Its unique form — soles studded with spikes, a spherical tip and a basket-weave high — has barely modified in many years.
The French firm that now owns the patent, Humeau-Beaupreau, sells 800,000 pairs a 12 months, in line with a consultant of the corporate. However the bulk of the lêkê seen throughout West Africa are manufactured domestically; in Ivory Coast, one should purchase a pair on nearly each road nook for about $1.50.
On a current afternoon, Céliba Coulibaly and Saliou Diallo had been buying a brand new pair — “chap chap,” they stated, or hurriedly — as a result of that they had tickets to gather for a Cup of Nations match later that day that includes Guinea, Mr. Diallo’s dwelling nation.
After all they might go to the stadium in lêkê, Mr. Diallo stated. “They’re gentle and comfy,” he added. “What else would I put on?”
In Ivory Coast, newbie soccer gamers are divided on the perfect mannequin to put on — these bearing the identify of the Argentine star Lionel Messi, or these named after Basile Boli, the Ivorian-born French participant who retired from soccer earlier than a lot of these now carrying lêkê had been born.
As soccer footwear, lêkê are a short-term dedication, because the straps usually break after only some weeks. They’re solely changed after they can’t maintain the ft anymore, so worn soles are a degree of pleasure — proof of hours of uninterrupted play on scrappy fields domestically generally known as Maracana, in homage to famed soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The scars and scratches left on ft by the metallic strap are each a badge of struggling and an emblem of dedication to the sport, gamers say.
“Let a man include correct sneakers and we’ll make enjoyable of him: ‘You assume you’re knowledgeable participant or what?’” Iliass Sanogo stated as he watched a bunch of buddies — all carrying lêkê — play within the hazy twilight.
Road distributors stated the recognition of the sandals coloured with the Ivorian flag (orange, white and inexperienced) had soared through the Africa Cup of Nations.
“Then we began shedding and gross sales collapsed,” joked one in every of them, Aboubakar Samaké, as he hawked jerseys for the event’s groups and all types of inexperienced and orange goodies, from bracelets to lêkê, in a bustling neighborhood in Abidjan.
The drop in gross sales may also be as a result of Mr. Samaké, describing his temper as “overwhelmed” after one significantly crushing loss, didn’t go away the home for 2 days.
“However discouragement isn’t an Ivorian factor,” Mr. Samaké shortly added, now again at work.
A number of hours later, Ivory Coast’s nationwide group was scheduled to face the reigning Cup of Nations champion, Senegal. Mr. Camara, dusty and sweaty from his pickup sport, rushed dwelling, dropped his lêkê and jumped within the bathe. He resurfaced minutes later carrying an Ivory Coast jersey and clear denims. He left his lêkê to relaxation, donned flip flops, and strolled to a close-by kiosk to observe his group win.
