{"id":20160,"date":"2013-02-06T04:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T04:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/02\/burkina-faso-living-by-the-meaning-of-their-name-at-afcon\/"},"modified":"2013-02-06T04:59:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T04:59:00","slug":"burkina-faso-living-by-the-meaning-of-their-name-at-afcon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/02\/06\/burkina-faso-living-by-the-meaning-of-their-name-at-afcon\/","title":{"rendered":"Burkina Faso Living By The Meaning Of Their Name At Afcon"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Posted On Wednesday, 6th February 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Their<\/p>\n

Coach Paul Put has led Burkina Faso to the dark horses of the 2013 AFCON<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Their nickname is Les \u00c9talons, (The Stallions). And a Stallion is an uncastrated adult male horse. Then by reaching the semi finals of Africa Cup of Nations, they have morphed into a dark horse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And a dark horse, go back to your dictionary is \u201ca candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is Burkina Faso for you. They are loving every bit of it here in Nelspruit.<\/p>\n

Goalkeeper Abdoulaye Soulama told FeverPitch minutes after their 1-0 victory at Mbombela Stadium that: \u201cNobody talked about us when we arrived here. We preferred it that way. Unfortunately as you progress people now notice what you are up to,\u201d Soulama said before firing a warning to Ghana.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis far, we are not scared of anybody and least of all Ghana. I have been playing for Asante Kotoko for almost ten years now. I know them in and out. Their thinking, their culture and everything. So bring them on,\u201d said Soulama the only surviving member of the Burkina Faso team that reached semifinal when they hosted the tournament in 1998. He was the youngest player then at 17 years.<\/p>\n

Lost His Dad<\/p>\n

Soulama lost his dad in a road accident back in his homeland on the day he was sent off for handling the ball outside the box against Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old elected to stay with the team saying his father had already been buried according to Islamic practice.<\/p>\n

Although he did not feature against Togo on Sunday, Soulama insists they are all playing for each other for it does no matter who starts.<\/p>\n

Honest People<\/p>\n

Burkina Faso was called Republic of Upper Volta until 1984 when slain then-President Captain Thomas Sankara changed it using a word from each of the country\u2019s two major native languages, Moore and Dioula.<\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia.com, \u201cBurkina\u201d may be figuratively translated as \u201cmen of integrity, while \u201cFaso\u201d means \u201cfatherland\u201d in Dioula.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurkino Faso\u201d is thus meant to be understood as \u201cLand of upright people\u201d or \u201cLand of honest people\u201d.<\/p>\n

It could thus be that humility and integrity with which the Stallions have conducted themselves at the finals that has endeared them to the media.<\/p>\n

Coach Paul Put said of the niggly question of the bad Mbombela pitch: \u201cIt may not be the best of pitches, but it is our home now. We have to adapt our game to the pitch and so far so good. I don\u2019t have the crystal ball to see what the future holds, but what I know is that anything is possible in football,\u201d the Belgian coach said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted On Wednesday, 6th February 2013 Coach Paul Put has led Burkina Faso to the dark horses of the 2013 AFCON Their nickname is Les \u00c9talons, (The Stallions). And a Stallion is an uncastrated adult male horse…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}