His wedding — held in his native Senegal two weeks ago — was, naturally, one of the biggest moments of Elimane Cissé's young life.

He just wasn't there for it.

Not in body, that is. But, spiritually and emotionally, he was front and centre. And still is.

"In Senegal, we can get married without being present," explained the 24-year-old Forge FC player, who was in Hamilton fulfilling his commitments to his professional soccer team when he and his wife, Seynabou, were officially married on Oct. 5.

"My wife and I were speaking via phone, on WhatsApp, all during the ceremony."

Cissé, who is French-speaking and does not know English, described the situation to The Spectator through interpreter Johan (Joe) Albert, the Forge assistant coach who is from France but speaks in a much different French dialect and with some substantially different vocabulary, than Cissé does.

Cissé, who, like his 22-year-old wife is Muslim, said that as part of the marriage preparations, his parents went to talk to his wife's family but that it was his and Seynabou's own decision to get married.

"I've known her for more than five years," he said. "We have been in love a long time. This is not an arranged marriage. We both really wanted to get married."

He said he would have preferred to be in Senegal for the ceremony, but "we wanted to be married now, this is my love," and he isn't sure when he'll be leaving Hamilton to return home.

Forge FC, one of the top two teams in the new Canadian Premier League, plays the first of its home-and-home series for the inaugural league championship Saturday (3:30 p.m.) at Tim Hortons Field against Cavalry FC. The Calgary-based Cavalry plays host to the second game Saturday, Nov. 2. Then, Cissé said, he will determine when he'll go back to Senegal.

"Maybe we will have a dinner or a little celebration of the wedding with the families when I do go back," he said.

He hopes to return to Forge FC for next season — and all indications are that the team wants the dynamic all-purpose player back for 2020 — and bring Seynabou to Hamilton with him.

Cissé, who has represented his country internationally about a dozen times, spent the previous five years playing for a professional club in Senegal. He says he prefers playing and living here right now, because "Senegal is too hot. You can't rest properly. Here, I can focus more on soccer and what I have to do to rest."

Cissé's father is deceased, and his mother and some of his eight brothers and sisters still live in Senegal. The other siblings live in Italy. Every month Cissé sends "almost everything" of his relatively small (estimated to be no more than $40,000 for the season) paycheque back to his mother.

"This is part of our culture," he said, "to help the family at home."

The Forge players, who are a tightly-knit group, presented Cissé with a celebratory cake in the locker-room after they heard about the wedding through midfielder Bertrand Owundi, the Cameroon native who also speaks French and is Cissé's roommate in Hamilton.

"Once we caught wind of it obviously we were very excited," team captain Kyle Bekker said. "He's a character in the locker-room. He's a great guy. He's always making jokes, even if there's a little bit of a translation issue there. We were very happy for him and we got him a little cake to surprise him.

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"It's a little different culture that he's from. Obviously, he'd want to be there for the wedding, but it's the soccer season. We just wanted to let him know we're happy for him."

smilton@thespec.com

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