!['Lowly' Mauritania teaches Ghana, Africa a football lesson [with PHOTOS]](http://photos.myjoyonline.com/photos/news/201802/9796272206120_3144743806061.JPG)
Source: Ghana/Joy Sports/Gary Al-Smith
Date: 22-02-2018 Time: 06:02:15:pm
Nouakchott, MAURITANIA - Yakoub is 13.
“I cannot think of anything else apart from playing football. And I’m not even supposed to be here!”
By ‘here’, Yakoub (pictured in main photo) means the premises of the Football Federation of Mauritania (FFRIM). The place is a complex of structures. Considering that just up the road, the buildings are mostly old, Arabic-inspired architecture, the modernity of this football sanctuary is jarring to its surroundings.
Inside the complex is a 500 seater mini-stadium (to be expanded to a 5,000 seater by next year), three adjoining training pitches, a mosque, and a youth academy. Plus, a digital unit building which houses the federation’s own TV station.
It is the youth academy which has brought Yakoub on his bike from home, two kilometres away. His grandmother sent him to get ingredients for the evening meal of fish and rice, locally called chebujin.
“I come and watch the U-15 team train before going. My big brother is here. One day I will be here too.”
Dreams like these have become possible for young Mauritanians because there is a tangible structure for the growth of the game in the country nestled in north-western Africa.
--
Inside the FFRIM building, on the second floor, hangs a photo. It’s of the U15 youth team playing their compatriots from Barcelona. Then there’s another, this time of the U17s playing Argentina.
“These images are important for us because they show how far we’ve come,” says Hachim El Yamani, an ex-footballer who has been covering the local game as a pressman for more than twenty years.
He tells Joy News that eight years ago, this country’s football was as barren as the desert, which covers approximately three-fourths of the country.
The top flight, or Ligue 1, which had just nine teams, was erratic. They had just two divisions. They had – and still have – never qualified for a major continental competition. They had no Fifa standard stadium. They did not have a single player in the whole country – which is four times the size of Ghana – on a standard salary or insurance. The football association operated out of a rented structure.
Today, the story is scarcely believable.
The national team, Les Mourabitones, eliminated Senegal from the 2013 African Nations Championship, after failing to beat their more illustrious neighbor in more than 15 attempts. Two years later, they hosted and beat South Africa in an AFCON qualifier. They’ve also beaten Liberia and Canada recently.
Then the world took notice. But it’s taken a lot of work.
--
Mauritania’s Football Federation (FFRIM) held its first democratic election in 2011, and Ahmed Ould Yahya won. That’s where the story begins.
He has his critics, but even they are silent in the face of the facts. Yahya instituted an ambitious Agenda 2024 move and bulldozed everyone along. ‘Bullboze’ is the word because he has had to whip his opponents in line.
In that time, a new 20,000 seater Olympic Stadium – where they beat South Africa three years later – has been built. An $820,000 youth center, covering 128 sq. miles, has been running since 2012. It currently has a national team for U15s, U17s, U20s and U23s.
Not just that, they also have leagues for U15, U17 and U20 teams nationwide that runs parallel to the Mauritanian Ligue 1. These youth leagues have been partnered by local telecom giants Mauritel, while a humanitarian support deal has been signed with UNICEF.