Beveren hit the Ivory trail

By John Baete

A 3-2 defeat at K. Lommelse SK this weekend ended a run of three straight victories for KSK Beveren, including wins against K. Sint-Truidense VV and Sporting Lokeren St-Niklaas Waalsan, both of whom are vying for a European place next season. However, Herman Helleputte's side are still making waves in the Belgian First Division.

African element
Thanks in part to the league's relaxed rules on fielding foreign players, Beveren have no less than eleven professionals from the Ivory Coast on their books. In the win against Sint Truiden, Helleputte fielded seven Ivorian players in the starting lineup: Emmanuel Eboué, Arsène Né, Arthur Boka, Yaya Touré, Gilles Yapi Yapo, Constant Kipré Kaiper and Venance Zezeto. For the Lokeren game, he fielded eight, with the addition of Joss Péhé.

Ivory Coast showcase
The huge Ivory Coast contingent at Beveren is down to the club's sports manager, Jean-Marc Guillou. Having set up a footballing academy in Abidjan in 1994, Guillou has used his connections in Belgium to make Beveren a showcase for his players.

'Attacking, technical, spectacular'
"We had great young players in the academy and wanted to give them a chance to play in Europe," he told uefa.com. "Beveren were interested in working with me. My goal was to have between ten and 15 of the players from the academy at the same club so that they could play the way they were taught: attacking, technical, spectacular."

Major impact
The arrival of so many young, keen players has made an impact at Beveren, who were only spared relegation last season because RWD Molenbeek and KSC Eendracht Aalst had their professional licences withdrawn for financial problems.

Common background
Now safely in mid-table, Guillou believes things can only get better: "We can get success if we play with eight players from the academy - players who have the same technical and tactical backgrounds," he said. "They are still very young of course - all born between 1980 and 1983."

International call-ups
The only problem Guillou can envisage for Beveren is the FIFA World Youth Championship starting at the end of March, which will suddenly see the club shorn of most of their young Ivory Coast players. "We'd better win some games right now," he joked.

Promising player
Perhaps the pick of those young players is 21-year-old midfield player Yapo, who has already won 23 caps for his country. There may have been teething problems as he and his fellow academy graduates arrived in Belgium, but Yapo remains convinced that Beveren's experiment will pay dividends.

'Time to adapt'
"We needed some time to adapt to the surroundings at Beveren but we were patient, because we knew that with our talent and some work, we could succeed," he said. "We knew that if we had a team with a certain number of old pupils of the academy, we would have good results."

Turbulent period
The only problem, as Yapo acknowledges, has been keeping in touch with relatives back in the Ivory Coast during a turbulent political period. "There were a lot of problems there, but now that the telephones are working again, we can have news from our families," he said.

Talk of Belgium
"We have a lot of fun all together, we are not nostalgic at all for Abidjan," he added. "We only think about playing football and having fun on the field." And the secret of Beveren's success? "We play beautiful football and we win," said Yapo. If the Ivorian contingent can continue to do that, Guillou and Beveren's bold enterprise could prove to be the sensation of the season.