Malo brings hope back to Burkina Faso

Kamou Malo's Burkina Faso face Senegal in the Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals on Wednesday with a young team that has brought cheer to a country in turmoil under a local coach who has undertaken a remarkable rebuilding job.

Malo dedicated the Stallions' quarter-final victory over Tunisia "to our people who are being tested by current events" after a military coup in the country which is battling a jihadist insurgency.

Burkina Faso was suspended from the African Union on Monday and it cannot be easy for their players to remain completely focused on the objective of upsetting Senegal and progressing to the final.

In the circumstances, having Malo, 59, at the helm may be especially precious right now.

Burkina Faso have reached the Cup of Nations final before, losing to Nigeria in 2013.

Then they were coached by the Belgian Paul Put, while when the Stallions finished third in 2017, the man in charge was Portugal's Paulo Duarte.

It is common for African national teams to be led by a European, and two of the other three semi-finalists in Cameroon have a Portuguese coach – Carlos Queiroz and Toni Conceicao are in charge of Egypt and the hosts respectively, while Aliou Cisse is the Senegal boss.

In Burkina Faso, Duarte's failure to lead the team to the 2019 AFCON persuaded the federation to change direction.

"We wanted to build something new," Colonel Sita Sangare, the former federation president, told AFP.

"We needed someone who could come in and really shake things up."

Malo, who calls himself "a born leader", is different to many of his peers in more ways than one.

He is a retired police officer for a start, and there is no doubting his authority – he included his son Patrick in the Cup of Nations squad but he has not featured since starting in the opening defeat by Cameroon.

Malo senior was brought up playing football on the streets of the capital, Ouagadougou, but he trained for the police force and was about to sit his exams to become a police captain when he got the chance to go to Germany and study for his coaching badges