The rich professionals of Ivory Coast’s nationwide soccer group had been resting of their luxurious lodge final week, making ready for a match in Africa’s largest match, when Yaya Camara sprinted onto a dusty lot and started fizzing one cross after one other to his mates.
Again and again, he corralled the sport’s underinflated ball after which despatched it away once more together with his favourite soccer footwear: worn plastic sandals lengthy derided because the sneaker of the poor, however which he and his mates put on as a badge of honor.
Shiny soccer cleats like his idols’? No thanks, mentioned Mr. Camara, a lean 18-year-old midfielder, as he wiped sweat from his forehead.
“How did the professionals began enjoying once 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 toes.
Whereas the most effective 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 most effective road soccer.
They reward the cheaper sandals for his or her practicality — “They’re lighter, they match higher they usually’re extra comfy 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 slim alleyways.
“Lêkê are the nationwide footwear of Ivory Coast,” mentioned Seydou Traoré, his toes resting inside an orange pair (the nationwide shade) as he watched a nerve-racking match on a tv pulled into the road alongside dozens of neighbors and mates. A lot of them wore lêkê, too.
It’s unclear how the shoe turned so fashionable in Ivory Coast. Most gamers mentioned that they had been carrying them since they had been toddlers. Faculty kids put on them to highschool. They usually blossom on numerous toes when the streets of Abidjan fill with water through the wet season.
And whereas the jelly shoe has change into stylish within the trend world lately, with luxurious manufacturers like Gucci making their very own model, they’re stylish in Ivory Coast for causes of each type and pragmatism.
“Other than within the workplace, you possibly can put on them in all places, even at a celebration,” mentioned Mr. Traoré, an newbie participant who as soon as competed in Ivory Coast’s second league.
Heels, gown footwear or leather-based sandals stay the favored footwear for the workplace in Ivory Coast, certainly one of West Africa’s largest economies and residential to a dynamic center class. However the enchantment of lêkê shone via few years in the past, when one of many nation’s most well-known singers turned businessman posed on the quilt 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 method to make use of a big batch of plastic he had ordered to make knives. Its authentic form — soles studded with spikes, a spherical tip and a basket-weave prime — has barely modified in a long time.
The French firm that now owns the patent, Humeau-Beaupreau, sells 800,000 pairs a 12 months, based on a consultant of the corporate. However the bulk of the lêkê seen throughout West Africa are manufactured regionally; in Ivory Coast, one should buy 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 mentioned, 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 residence nation.
After all they’d go to the stadium in lêkê, Mr. Diallo mentioned. “They’re gentle and cozy,” he added. “What else would I put on?”
In Ivory Coast, newbie soccer gamers are divided on the most effective 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 lots of these now carrying lêkê had been born.
As soccer footwear, lêkê are a short-term dedication, because the straps typically break after just a few weeks. They’re solely changed once they can’t maintain the toes anymore, so worn soles are a degree of delight — proof of hours of uninterrupted play on scrappy fields regionally often called Maracana, in homage to famed soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The scars and scratches left on toes 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 an expert participant or what?’” Iliass Sanogo mentioned as he watched a gaggle of mates — all carrying lêkê — play within the hazy twilight.
Avenue distributors mentioned 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 dropping and gross sales collapsed,” joked certainly one of them, Aboubakar Samaké, as he hawked jerseys for the match’s groups and every kind 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 residence, 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.
