The witchdoctor told the whole village that little Bandian had been chosen by the gods to fulfil a special role. Naturally, the ten-year-old boy defines that special role in terms of his own desires: his ambition to be a football star like Roger Milla, the man from Cameroon who brought glory to the African continent during the 1990 World Cup in Italy. But for now Bandian must content himself with kicking a bundle of rags round his mud hut village in Guinea.
In an arithmetic lesson at school, his classmates do a calculation on the blackboard; in order to afford a leather ball, Bandian will have to work for 582.87 days. But he strikes lucky and receives a ball as a present. It is worn, but leather and when the light catches it, it looks just like the ‘ballon d’or (the ball of gold)’, which the witchdoctor keeps talking about.