How Senegal ferry disaster shaped Cisse’s career in England

Manager was a ‘warrior’ for Steve Bruce at Birmingham despite losing 11 close family members in 2002 tragedy

There can be few more heartwrenching examples of the breadth of skills required in football management than the story of Steve Bruce and Aliou Cisse.

And even now, 20 years on, what is striking in hearing Bruce talk about the man whose Senegal team stand between England and a place in the World Cup quarter-finals is how often he uses the word “love”.

Bruce loved what Cisse always gave him as a player but, above all, he adored him as a person and what he saw daily in a 26-year-old Senegalese player who had been in England for only two months when tragedy struck.

Le Joola, a ferry with a capacity of fewer than 600, was more than three times over its capacity on its journey from Ziguinchor in the south of Senegal to Dakar when it capsized in high winds and rough seas with no lifeboats or effective radio signals.

It was one of the worst maritime disasters in history and the 1,863 death toll would include 11 of Cisse’s close family members, including his sister, aunts, uncles, nephews and cousins. It was a ferry journey that Cisse himself had made on numerous occasions.

The tragedy occurred on Sept 26, 2002, but, incredibly, Cisse chose to continue training with Birmingham City and, following an agonising wait to receive the dreadful information about his family, played in a 2-0 defeat by Newcastle and then a 2-1 victory against West Ham over the next nine days.

Cisse had shared news of the tragedy with Bruce but chose to shield his team-mates, later saying he wanted to “protect the group from my state of mind”. Bruce says that Cisse still delivered a series of “magnificent” performances during Birmingham’s first season in the Premier League.

Bruce said: “I’d seen him play in the World Cup for Senegal, when they beat France. He was captain and I was always interested in signing captains because they get the armband for a reason. He would never give up or take a backward step.

“He was as tough as

I’ve had as a manager. Hard as nails. You just wouldn’t mess with him. He made himself a big fan favourite with his attitude as much as anything. I loved him as a lad… I loved him to bits.”

Bruce does identify a somewhat delayed on-field reaction from the tragedy during Cisse’s second season at the club, when he made only 17 appearances. “It was tough for him after that,” Bruce said. “He came back late for pre-season, he wasn’t really in the right place mentally. He just wasn’t right to play and it took him some time to recover.

“We never fell out over it. How can you fall out with someone who has just gone through something like that? He was never the same again in his second season, but he was magnificent in the first one. A real warrior.”

Cisse moved to Portsmouth in 2004 where, according to manager Harry Redknapp, he spent two seasons “covering every blade of grass”. Redknapp could sense Cisse’s quiet leadership in the dressing room but had not necessarily expected him to become a manager. Bruce was less surprised, believing that his “attitude and spirit”, allied to his “generosity and popularity”, constituted a formidable set of qualities. Having helped Senegal create history as a player by reaching the Africa Cup of Nations final in 2002 and then the World Cup

quarter-finals later that same year, Cisse has also broken new ground for his country, and the whole of Africa, as a manager since 2015.

Cisse was the only black manager at the 2018 World Cup, where Senegal went out in the group stage, and repeatedly used his voice to call for more opportunities, highlighting how the African teams were then often coached by European managers. That does seem to be changing amid Cisse’s example and he also led Senegal to their first Africa Cup of Nations title earlier this year. This last-16 appearance against England makes it their most successful World Cup since 2002.

Cisse, who only spoke publicly for the first time about the ferry tragedy earlier this year, wants the many other families who were affected to know that their loved ones will never be forgotten.

“We must simply remember our dead and all those families decimated from the fathers down to the grandchildren,” he said. “In fact, my main motivation in agreeing to this interview is to say, ‘We are thinking of you’.”