The broken fate of Saliou Lassissi

Lassissi, the natural one

There are cruel destinies in sport and Saliou Lassissi has entered (unfortunately) in that category. In 1993, Lassissi joined the École Technique Privée Odorico, Rennes’ football Academy straight from Kanj, bearing a status of hot prospect immediately given to him. This son of a family of accountants would continue his apprenticeship with the club’s Reserve during three years. On the national day of 1996, “Toupé” played his first match in the Intertoto Cup against Segesta Sisak (2-1), a month before turning 18. The big 1m85 player and his huge physical power took his place in the first team during the season, managing good games both at centre-back and in an anchor midfielder position before the defence.
Long protected before facing the highest level, Lassissi disrupted the routine of the experienced pair of centre backs composed of François Denis and Corneliu Papură as soon as the 1996-1997 season, but admits all wasn’t that simple from the start: “It wasn’t easy because I hadn’t played for a club in Ivory Coast before. I had to learn the basics, the joggings. I learnt for two or three years. Thanks God, I could join the professional squad. I played my first game and everyone liked it”.

Yves Colleu’s protégé revealed himself during an evening of November against Auxerre (1-0, goal by Stéphane Guivarc’h) by keeping in control of possibly one of the best attacking lines in France and even in Europe at the time (Bernard Diomède, Lilian Laslandes, Steve Marlet). Spirited, he even allowed himself a little bit of fantasy in his own penalty area, running all along his team’s goal line with the ball to his foot, under the dumbfounded eyes of the Breton fans and of Steve Marlet, still running behind him… Naturally, his talent attracted attention beyond the French frontiers, and especially from the Italian clubs, always keen on recruiting the rising stars of French football (Rennes experienced this situation with Ousmane Dabo and Mickaël Silvestre). During that season, following the 1998 World Cup, his season was disrupted (already) by “minor” injuries, and rewarded with a call-up with the Elephants of Ivory Coast in the African Cup of Nations, ending in a quarter-final elimination against Egypt (0-0, 4-5 pen.).
Constantly battling against relegation at the bottom of the French first division, Rennes could not hold on to their Ivorian wonderkid, chased by the bests of Italian teams. His career continued in Parme , with the same insouciance and thirst of success, even though he was now facing the competition of Fabio Cannavaro and Lilian Thuram. After only one game with Parme, he was soon loaned to the Sampdoria and made a name for himself in the Serie A, without managing to avoid the team’s relegation [1]. The Ivorian returned to the Gialloblù of Parma, freshly crowned UEFA Cup winners against the Olympique de Marseille: « Parme saw I was the boss of the defence in that team. Everyboy was getting interested in me. Especially the media”, Lassissi would remember a few years later. The beginning of a stable, long term career?

An Italian divorce

His second spell in Parma proved more satisfying (19 games), but feeling he wasn’t considered highly enough by the club, Lassissi left for the Fiorentina, where he opened his silverware cabinet by winning the Italian Cup with a success against… Parma in the final (1-0, 1-1). An experience and a success which caught the eye of a renowned manager, Fabio Capello. To become Fabio Capello’s first choice would leave no player cold, especially when he expresses the wish to make you the designed successor of Aldair. Without thinking twice, Lassissi signed a three-year contract with Rome for a monthly salary above 100,000 euros, without imagining once that his career would take a dramatic turn just a few days later.

What could happen to Lassissi? Desired by a world class coach, playing for one the Italian clubs involved at the highest level of European football, his career was on the way up. Sadly, his ascension was broken on August 7th 2001 in a friendly game against Boca Junior (3-1). Five minutes after entering on the pitch in the second half, the African was left on the floor following a terrible tackle by Antonio Barhijo. The diagnosis sends shivers down the spine: Broken shin and fibula, and damages to the sciatic nerve [2] : “I wake up like a tramp, I only sleep half an hour a night. I’m scared it won’t heal”, Lassissi explained to the Italian press in October 2001 when asked about his new life. For a year, Lassissi’s daily life was entirely focused on his rehabilitation, but another hurdle would await him at his return in Capello’s squad.

Not paid since months, Lassissi didn’t accept the situation (far from it) and requested explanations from the Italian oil tycoon. This attitude resulted in him being removed of the professional squad at AS Roma, to Capello’s dismay, and not allowed to leave the club. Lassissi replied by suing his employer in the first place, before requesting the UEFA not to deliver a European licence, mandatory to play in Europan Cups, to “his” club. Frustrated on a sportive point of view, Lassissi was successful in his complaint to the arbitrary college of the Italian professional league, and Sensi was forced to pay him nearly three million euros in damages. In three years, «Toupé» would only play one official game and this thanks to a little boost by Ivorian national coach Robert Nouzaret, for a match against Nantes in October 2003, which would be his last with the elephants. Although he was ready to play according to the medical staff, but Sensi refused to see Lassissi play again for AS Roma or sign to another club. In June 2004, at the end of his contract with AS Roma, he was free to move to the club of his choice. This is what everyone was thinking.

Life choices

Boasting on his earnings and certainly tired after his long court case, Lassissi didn’t have « the head to football » anymore, as he explained very well to La dépêche d’Abidjan : “After that, it didn’t really work for me, because of this injury. It stopped everything, and I was far from the football grounds. So I opted for something that wasn’t very good, the show, just having fun between Paris and Abidjan ».
After unsuccessful trial in Bastia in winter 2004, a very short spell in Nancy between June 2005 and January 2006 would remain as his final experience in professional football, although he had signed a two years contract. Then, Lassissi returned to his home country and brought his experience to RFC Daoukro (January 2007, June 2007). His final experiences on the football pitches where two very unnoticeable spells at Bellinzona (Switzerland, June 2007 – November 2007) and the Entente Sannois-Saint-Gratien (November 2007 – June 2008), a club in which he played the role of a spiritual father. Not a dream career, far from the wonders he seemed destined to at his debuts.
A man of faith, the man born in the Marcory districts know that his destiny could have been radically different : « My career was good, but I have to recognize it hasn’t gone the way I wanted it to go », he explained. “I have no regrets since I had good times. Thanks god, I earned a good living (…) You can earn as much as you want in football, even win the World Cup, but if them you do nothing and you act foolishly, there’s only trouble».

Trouble he also knew himself because of his very strong character. In January 2000, Lassissi was expelled from the Ivory Coast national squad just before the African Cup of Nations for a head-butt given to Blaise Kouassi following … a bad pass at training. Not accepting the remarks of his national coach, he told him so and Gbonké Tia Martin sent him home with immediate effect. Six years later, it is an affair of domestic violence that dented his image. However, this doesn’t bring the player’s immense talent into question, and he is still considered the best centre back ever trained at the Stade Rennais. Recently, Lassissi reappeared for the testimonial game of his friend and compatriot Laurent Pokou, an initiative Rennes could repeat for their former African jewel. The Ivorian star never really made it, but still shines for the young Ivoirians (especially in his district of Macory), since Lassissi is recognized there to his real dimension, the one he briefly reached in the past.

As for the younger fans, they now know who Saliou Lassissi is.