Bamba and team-mates have experienced death threats, a stadium disaster and managerial upheaval. Now they've got to face Brazil

That's right. The playing fields of Tranent are all around us at the Hibs training complex, but emotionally we are many, many miles away, transported in the mind's eye to West Africa as guests of Souleymane Bamba.

He's telling us about Cabinda in January. The Africa Cup of Nations. Togo and all that. Freedom fighters shoot up a bus and some people are dead. Some others are frightened. Bamba is with his Ivory Coast team-mates in their camp in the middle of the no-go area. A newsflash comes on the telly. There's a dude with a shooter and he's making demands. Says his mob are coming for Didier Drogba. They're going to take him away and do him in unless stuff is sorted. Bamba turns to Drogba who's motionless in his seat, staring at the box like he's seen a ghost. Then the phone starts ringing. Chelsea on the line. They're sending a plane. Now.

You don't get this in the SPL, eh? But wait, there's more. Drogba says he's leaving and the boys say we're right behind you. One out, all out. They tell the president of their federation they're going. He tells the president of the country. Word comes back that on no account are they to set so much as a toe outside of Angola. They ask why? Because their president is an ally of the Angolan president and them leaving wouldn't look so good. Better to stay and be kidnapped, then? No, no, vows the boss. We'll send troops to protect you.

Twenty-four hours later, at midnight, a car with four male passengers drives straight into the Ivory Coast camp unseen by security and locates the house where Drogba is staying. They knock on the door and Drogba answers. They reach from their back pockets in silence. Then take out their autograph books. Any chance of a signature, Didier? Would you smile for a photograph? Drogba nearly passes out with shock. What if they had guns instead of biros?

"It's true," says Bamba. "Didier says his son phoned him up and told him, 'Dad, what are you still doing there? You will get hurt'. I was thinking the same. I have a daughter, Lilly. She's only three. She lives in Paris with my partner, Celine. I'm in a very bad place in the middle of nowhere in Angola and, really, all I want to do is go home. You know, we failed at the Africa Cup of Nations. We didn't play well. And we got a lot of criticism for it. People in the Ivory Coast said that our big players don't care about the country, that Drogba and Salomon Kalou and the Toures and Emmanuel Eboue only care about money. They said because the boys have big houses and big cars and big salaries that they forget the fans. They also said we had girls in our rooms and that we just couldn't be bothered. It was so much rubbish. It was incredible. I don't want to make excuses why we didn't play better in that tournament, but the fact is that we were unhappy being there. It wasn't safe. We had other things on our mind than football."

Bamba's had an eventful year. He's been up close to death once too often. Angola was bad enough, but then there was the business of the collapsed wall in the national stadium in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan. This was in March. It was a qualifying match for a World Cup that he will hopefully soon get to play in, so long as the new manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, picks him. Too many people turned up to watch the Ivory Coast host Malawi. Way too many. They pushed and they jostled and a wall gave in. There was a stampede, people got crushed to death. Nineteen of them.

"This all happened before the match began. We were aware that something was happening. We heard the shouting and the ambulances. We didn't know what it was, but it sounded crazy. Nobody told us people had died. Nobody. We went out and we played the match and we didn't know. It was only later that we were told. People died out there. Corruption, that was at the heart of it I'm sure. If you go to the stadium with no ticket but you give some money to the police they will let you in. That's the problem. Our fans come to see us play football and they die for it. Unbelievable. We played a match for these people afterwards, but what good is that? What comfort does it bring to their families?"

It's been an odyssey, then. The road to South Africa has been a deeply troubled one, on the pitch as well as off it. When the Ivory Coast lost to Algeria in the Africa Cup of Nations it marked the end of Vahid Halilhodzic's time in charge as manager. Halilhodzic lost one competitive match in two years, but such is the way of things in Abidjan. Great things are demanded of the national team. And when great things don't come, somebody gets wasted.

The manager's dismissal was, and remains, a blow to Bamba. They knew each other from their days together at PSG. It was Halilhodzic who gave Bamba his first start in senior football and his first cap in the international game. He gave him more than a dozen after that and made him a regular in his defence. Now? He's a little uncertain. The peculiar new world of Eriksson is upon him and he really doesn't know what it's going to bring. He knows that none of the players wanted Eriksson. Or at least, they wanted Guus Hiddink more. Drogba made all the running on that front, almost pleading with his former manager at Chelsea to take up the reins. Hiddink went elsewhere. And so Sven appeared, like a consolation prize.

He's been making some worrying noises from Bamba's point of view. The Ivorians are together in Switzerland right now and the emphasis seems to be on improving the quality of their defending. It is at the back where improvements need to be made, says the new manager, an understandable assessment given that Brazil and Portugal are in their pool in South Africa. Bamba smiles heartily at the prospect of facing Kaka and Luis Fabiano one week and Cristiano Ronaldo the next, but says he's not sure where he stands anymore. Does Eriksson rate him? He has no idea. He's up against some proven Premiership players and some others from the Bundesliga. "I'll find out soon enough, I guess."

The pressure on these players is vast. There are few allowances made in the Ivory Coast for the quality of their opposition and the scale of their challenge. There is nothing but belief and love right now, but the players have seen too often how this devotion can flip to disbelief and hate in the space of 90 minutes. "They almost love us too much," says Bamba. "They expect so much from us. We are a good team, we know that. We can be very good. On our day, I believe we can beat anybody. But the fact is that the last time the Ivory Coast won anything was back in 1992, so something is wrong somewhere. We go into every tournament with people saying they like the look of our team but we never do much. That has to change. There's no reason why it can't. I have huge respect for Brazil and Portugal but from what I hear they have huge respect for us. And maybe some fear about playing us."

Drogba, of course, is the talisman. More than anybody else, the pressure is on him. But he seems to wear it lightly. He keeps in touch with his players during the season, watching how they're progressing with their clubs, ringing them from time to time, sending off a few texts when appropriate. Bamba's had a couple and he's appreciated them. Words of encouragement and support. He liked that.

"It's difficult for Didier because any time we got beat it's all his fault. When you win, it's Drogba. But when you lose, it's also Drogba. The fans worship him when things are good and target him when they're not so good. They give him a very hard time. They say, 'Ah, Drogba doesn't like to play with Kolo Toure, they don't get on'. You hear that a lot. But that's not true. I'm in the team and if I saw that I would tell you. I would ring Toure and say even if you don't like him, play together for the team. Not all players are friends but they can get along on the pitch and that's all that matters. They're fine. Didier is a great captain, but he has a lot to deal with."

Given the chance by Eriksson, Bamba will have a lot to deal with too in the coming weeks. He's got a year left on his contract at Hibs and you hear all sorts of talk about him moving on before then, all sorts of rumours that he's going to England or Germany or Spain. "The only place I want to go is South Africa," he says. "I'm 25 and this is something I've dreamed about my whole life."