History
ASEC Mimosas was founded on 1 January 1948 by a group of businessmen from Western Africa, Lebanon and France. The club originates from a place called Sol-béni in Abidjan-M'pouto, which today is the name of their training complex. In the following years, ASEC competed in the Championship of Abidjan together with their eternal rival Africa Sports, with their first professional coach being Frenchman Guy Fabre in 1954. Fabre also shaped the clubs philosophy of que les enfants s'amusent... en jouant au football (may the children have fun... by playing football).
After Independence in 1960, ASEC won its first title in the newly found Premier Division in 1963. In the early 1970s, ASEC rose to power by winning the league title 5 out of 6 possible times from 1970 to 1975. This was the era of players as Laurent Pokou and Eustache Manglé. In the next years, it was Africa Sports who dominated the league, with ASEC winning only once in 1980.
On 19 November 1989, advocate Roger Ouégnin was elected as club president. In his wish to professionalize the club, he introduced Philippe Troussier as coach from 1989 till 1992. This was the time for ASEC to return to old strength, winning the championship six consecutive times between 1990 and 1995. ASEC also provided the backbone of the national team that won the 1992 African Cup of Nations, including key members of the side such as Ben Badi, Donald-Olivier Sié and Basile Aka Kouamé. After having qualified for the semi-finals already five times before, ASEC finally won the CAF Champions League in 1998. For some players, this was the chance to sign for a European club, for example team captain Tchiressoua Guel, who joined Olympique de Marseille afterwards. A few years later, ASEC bet their own record by winning the league seven consecutive times between 2000 and 2006.
In 1993, former French national player Jean-Marc Guillou joined the club staff as director, manager and financier. Together with chairman Roger Ouégnin, he founded the Académie MimoSifcom at Sol Béni. In the following weeks, they started to scout amongst thousands of young kids to form the first promotions to receive coaching and education. In 1999, following ASECs success in the 1998 Champions League, ASEC faced Espérance Sportive de Tunis in the CAF Super Cup. But most of the old players were aged, had left the club or at least wanted to. So Guillou and Ouégnin decided to replace the old squad with the first products of the Academy, most of them only aged around 17/18 years. The own protested against this measure and Espérance’s president Slim Chiboub called it a "scandal to be playing against children". However, the young ASEC squad surprisingly beat the their opponents by 3 to 1 goals and brought in the second big international title for their club. Amongst others, Boubacar 'Copa' Barry, Kolo Touré, Didier Zokora, Gilles Yapi Yapo, Siaka Tiéné, Abdoulaye Djire, Venance Zézé, and Aruna Dindane were part of that squad.
When Guillou became manager of Belgian side K.S.K. Beveren in 2001, many of the Academy's players joined him. As a result, the Belgian team consisted mainly out of Ivorian players for several years. These could use Beveren as a chance to show their talent to top European clubs. Players as Yaya Touré, Arthur Boka, Emmanuel Eboué, Gervinho, Romaric and Copa all had their time in Beveren. This lasted till 2006, when Guillou and Beveren broke up with ASEC Mimosas. ASEC then linked up with Charlton Athletic.
Read more about this topic: ASEC Mimosas
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)