Côte d'Ivoire

Ivorian football has a heart with two sides: the Abidjan derby between ASEC Mimosas and Africa Sports, one of the continent's oldest and fiercest rivalries. ASEC entered history twice over: an unbeaten run of more than a hundred matches that earned a place in the Guinness book, and the academy founded by Jean-Marc Guillou in the 1990s, the nursery that produced the Tourés, Gervinho, Eboué and Kalou and fuelled the Elephants' golden generation. In a country that breathes football from Abidjan to Bouaké, every generation grows up dreaming of the orange shirt and of Europe, and the road between the two almost always runs through the academy's pitches.