Background and career
Aristide Bancé (born 19 September 1984) is a Burkinabé former professional footballer who played as a striker.
He started his European career at Lokeren, scoring 27 goals in 87 Jupiler Pro League games. After a season in Ukraine with Metalurh Donetsk, he moved to German club Mainz 05. In his first season at Mainz he helped the club achieve promotion to the Bundesliga with 14 league goals, as well as the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal, scoring 4 goals in the latter competition. The next season, under Thomas Tuchel, he helped Mainz staying in the German top tier and achieve 9th place by scoring 10 goals in the 2009–10 Bundesliga.
In 2013, Bancé helped his national team to reach the final of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, Burkina Faso's greatest achievement in football to date. He scored both the equaliser and the winning kick in the eventual penalty shootout in the semi-final against Ghana. In the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, he scored the first goal in Burkina Faso's win over Tunisia in the quarter-finals, and in the semi-final scored a late equaliser against Egypt to take the game to a penalty shootout. Burkina Faso lost the shootout and eventually finished third overall in the cup by defeating Ghana in the third place play-off.
