African Sports Monthly Mar, 2015 | Page 47

ASM: Beside Ivory Coast, can you pick four teams you think played very well at the tournament? Cheick Tioté: Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, DR Congo and Algeria ASM: Budding talents across Africa followed the tournament across three weeks and would wish to represent their respective countries someday at the AFCON level. What do you think they must do to realise that dream? Cheick Tioté: It is not impossible. They only need to keep working and dreaming. I was in their shoes before. I used to watch football on TV and wondered if I would one day be able to play for people to watch me on the screen. I believed in it and worked towards it. But I must confess it doesn’t come on a platter of gold. You must sacrifice a number of things like wasteful friendship, dr inking and smoking, dangerous plays and sometimes some kind of food. You also need to work harder than the group work. I can conclude that the 2015 Afcon was an exciting and rich experience. . Cheick Tioté and teammate Yaya Toure on assignment