Football: Abdel Kader Coulibaly, the Ivorian striker who became a star scorer for the Cambodian team

Sometimes you have to travel far, far away, and take long and unexpected routes to find the path to success. Nearly 12,000 km separate M'Bahiakro, Abdel Kader Coulibaly's birthplace in central Côte d'Ivoire , from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, where the 31-year-old footballer has become the new star of the national team.

Barely naturalized by his host country, the striker for Angkor Tiger FC—a club in Siem Reap, Cambodia's second largest city—has found the perfect method to accelerate his adoption. For his first match against Malaysia at the Southeast Asian Championship, on December 8, 2024, in Phnom Penh, Abdel Kader Coulibaly scored, repeating the feat twelve days later in Thailand. A personal "immense joy" and a change in social status, he admits: "It largely contributed to my being known. Before, I went almost unnoticed. After those two goals for the national team, I started signing more autographs and having my picture taken more often in the street or in restaurants."

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