Les Etalons renew rivalries with Cote D’Ivoire, having provided the Elephants with their stiffest test in qualification for the tournament. But, like the Ivorians, they travel to Angola shorn of an influential midfield presence for disciplinary reasons.

German-based Aristide Bance, a controversial figure for a number of reasons, had a spectacular fall-out with the Burkinabe’s Portuguese coach Paulo Duarte last month, claiming that Duarte had paid him insufficient attention over the past twelve months and alleging that Duarte hadn’t even bothered to check out his club form with Bundesliga mid-table outfit Mainz 05.

It was probably just as well that Duarte wasn’t at Mainz’s recent fixture with Eintracht Frankfurt, where Bance’s altercation with Frankfurt’s Maik Franz resulted in fines from his club and the German Football Federation for an obscene gesture in Franz’s direction and an unsolicited meeting with an advertising hoarding after Franz retaliated.

In Moumoni Dagano, Burkina Faso had the final qualifying tournament’s second-top scorer with five goals, one behind the inevitable Drogba, and he has averaged a goal every two games for his national side.

But the squad lacks international experience – Dagano himself plays his club football in Qatar – with representatives from leagues as diverse as China, Azerbaijan and Libya alongside three players from Uniao Leiria, who were promoted from the Portuguese second division last summer and for whom Duarte was both player and manager.

Duarte himself hasn’t had the best of years, having lasted just six months as coach of French Ligue 1 strugglers Le Mans before his dismissal last month, with the side fourth from bottom in the table. Duarte had tried to combine the club and country managerial roles. It seems he failed. Still Burkina Faso carry hopes into the 2010 African Nations Cup

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