Playing football in Abidjan? Buy some Lêkê.

The wealthy pros of the Ivory Coast national football team were resting in their luxury hotel last week, preparing for a match in Africa's biggest tournament, when Yaya Camara sprinted onto a dusty ground, making one pass after another to his friends started hissing.

Time and time again, he collected the game's underinflated ball and sent it packing with his favorite football boots: worn-out plastic sandals long derided as the sneaker of the poor, but which he and his friends wear as a badge of honor.

Shiny football boots like those of his idols? No thanks, said Mr. Camara, a thin 18-year-old midfielder, as he wiped sweat from his brow.

“How did the pros start playing when they were kids like us? With lêkê,” he added, referring to the sandals that are ubiquitous not only in his pick-up game, but almost everywhere an Ivorian puts his feet.

While the best African teams wear expensive branded shoes at this year's continental football championship, the Africa Cup of Nations, it is in lêkê (pronounced leh-keh) that amateur players make the best street football.

They praise the cheaper sandals for their practicality — “They're lighter, they fit better and they're more comfortable where we play,” as Mr. Camara put it — in games that take place not on manicured lawns in shiny new stadiums but on countless sandy spots, dusty courtyards and narrow alleys.

“Lêkê are the national shoes of Ivory Coast,” said Seydou Traoré, with his feet in an orange pair (the national color) watching a nerve-wracking match on a television pulled into the street along with dozens of neighbors and friends. Many of them also wore lêkê.

It is unclear how the shoe became so popular in Ivory Coast. Most players said they have been wearing them since they were toddlers. Schoolchildren wear them to school. And they bloom in countless numbers as the streets of Abidjan fill with water during the rainy season.

And while the jelly shoe has become trendy in the fashion world in recent years, with luxury brands such as Gucci creating their own version, in Ivory Coast they are chic for both style and pragmatism.

“Apart from the office, you can wear them anywhere, even at a party,” says Mr. Traoré, an amateur player who once played in Ivory Coast's second division.

Heels, dress shoes or leather sandals remain the office shoes of choice in Ivory Coast, one of West Africa's largest economies and home to a dynamic middle class. But lêkê's appeal manifested itself several years ago, when one of the country's most famous singers turned businessman posed on the cover of a style magazine dressed in a gray western style suit and white plastic sandals.

The story goes that the jelly sandal was born in 1946, when a French knifemaker invented the original model as a way to use up a large batch of plastic he had ordered to make knives. The original shape – soles studded with spikes, a rounded tip and a basket-weave upper – has changed little in decades.

The French company that now owns the patent, Humeau-Beaupreau, sells 800,000 pairs a year, according to a company representative. But most of the lêkê in West Africa is made locally; in Ivory Coast you can buy a pair on almost any street corner for around $1.50.

On a recent afternoon, Céliba Coulibaly and Saliou Diallo bought a new pair — “chap chap,” they said, or in a hurry — because they had to collect tickets for a Cup of Nations match later that day with Guinea, Mr. Diallo's home country. .

Of course they would go to the stadium in lêkê, Mr Diallo said. “They are light and comfortable,” he added. “What else would I wear?”

In Ivory Coast, amateur footballers are divided over the best model to wear – those that bear the name of Argentine star Lionel Messi, or those named after Basile Boli, the Ivory Coast-born French player who retired from football before many of those who now play lêkê are born.

As football boots, lêkê are a short-term commitment, as the straps often break after just a few weeks. They are only replaced when they can no longer hold the feet, so worn soles are a point of pride: a testament to hours of continuous play on filthy pitches known locally as Maracana, in tribute to the famous football stadium in Rio de Janeiro . The scars and scratches the metal band leaves on the feet are both a sign of suffering and a symbol of dedication to the game, players say.

“Let a man come with good sneakers and we will laugh at him: 'Do you think you are a professional player or something?'” said Iliass Sanogo as he watched a group of friends – all dressed in lêkê – playing in the hazy twilight .

Street vendors said the popularity of the Ivorian flag sandals (orange, white and green) had soared during the Africa Cup of Nations.

“Then we started losing and sales collapsed,” joked one of them, Aboubakar Samaké, as he sold jerseys for the tournament teams and assorted green and orange goodies, from bracelets to lêkê, in a bustling Abidjan neighborhood.

The drop in sales could also be due to the fact that Mr. Samaké, who described his mood as “overwhelmed” after a particularly crushing loss, had not left the house for two days.

“But discouragement is not an Ivorian thing,” Mr. Samaké quickly added, now that he is back at work.

A few hours later, the Ivory Coast national team would face reigning Cup of Nations champions Senegal. Mr. Camara, dusty and sweaty from his pickup game, hurried home, dropped his lêkê and jumped into the shower. A few minutes later he reappeared in an Ivory Coast sweater and clean jeans. He rested his lêkê, put on slippers and walked to a nearby kiosk to watch his team win.