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If you’re of a certain vintage, there’s a good chance you saw THIS goal when you were a kid and became a fan of Cameroon. As one of your resident Millennials at DFO
*dodges beer bottles being thrown at him*
I remember watching this goal and being all-in on Cameroon. When you’re a kid, what’s there to not like about them? Their name kind of rhymes with Macaroon, their flag looks nice– as does the coloUr scheme of their jerseys– and their nickname is The Indomitable Lions, which is a badass name.
As I continued to follow them over the years, my desire to travel to Cameroon has intensified and is now in my top 5 countries I want to visit before I die. As a result, I’ve picked up quite a few interesting nuggets about the country that I would like to share with the class:
– When Portugal originally colonized Cameroon in 1472 (ish); it was named Rio dos Camarões (Shrimp River). Considering that’s where Cameroon got its name from, I wouldn’t blame them one bit for changing it back to Bamoun, the name of North-West Cameroon before colonization.
– Cameroon is often called Mini-Africa because of its cultural and geographical diversity. In terms of cultural diversity, there are over 200 ethnic groups and over 250 languages spoken (English and French are the 2 primary languages). For geographical diversity, Cameroon has all the major climates and vegetation of the continent: mountains, desert, rain forest, savanna grassland, and ocean coastland. To me, that’s incredible because the country is about the same size of Spain.
– The Waza National Park is incredibly under-rated as a tourist destination. It has dozens of different wildlife from Africa, hundreds of birds, and lots of rare species that no other countries have.
-Cameroonians are lovely people. I remember in the early aughts, they were consistently named the happiest people on earth. While that has changed, their love for joke telling has not. I have a couple of Cameroonian acquaintances–neither know of the other– and they both tell the same joke of:
A young man in his 20s: Father, I feel like living forever.
After a chuckle, the Father says: No. But once you marry one, the urge for a long life decreases drastically.
– Cameroon has the longest ruling non-royal national leader. Since before I was born, Paul Biya has been Cameroon’s democratically elected President; beginning in November 1982. To do the Cameroonians a favour *wink wink* he changed the terms of the presidency from four years to seven years. On a related note, there’s a joke that goes:
In an ideal world, the president of Cameroon and the worst human being alive would be two different people.
Coincidentally enough, this attempted murder on Biya’s birthday just happened in France.
– The manager is Ribobert Song. You probably remember him representing Cameroon in the 2010 World Cup:
Here’s who will be representing Cameroon and why this team is interesting:
Goalkeepers: Devis Epassy (Abha Club), Simon Ngapandouetnbu (Olympique de Marseille), Andre Onana (Inter Milan)
Defenders: Jean-Charles Castelletto (Nantes), Enzo Ebosse (Udinese), Collins Fai (Al Tai), Olivier Mbaizo (Philadelphia Union), Nicolas Nkoulou (Aris Salonika), Tolo Nouhou (Seattle Sounders), Christopher Wooh (Stade Rennes)
Midfielders: Martin Hongla (Verona), Pierre Kunde (Olympiakos), Olivier Ntcham (Swansea City), Gael Ondoua (Hannover 96), Samuel Oum Gouet (Mechelen), Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa (Napoli)
Forwards: Vincent Aboubakar (Al Nassr), Christian Bassogog (Shanghai Shenhua), Eric-Maxime Choupo Moting (Bayern Munich), Souaibou Marou (Coton Sport), Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford), Nicolas Moumi Ngamaleu (Young Boys Berne), Jerome Ngom (Colombe Dja), Georges-Kevin Nkoudou (Besiktas), Jean-Pierre Nsame (Young Boys Berne), Karl Toko Ekambi (Olympique Lyonnais)
If this is the first time you’re reading the names of Cameroon and you didn’t know who any of them are, don’t worry, neither did Song when he read out the team roster 10 days ago. This is where the roster gets interesting.
You see, Cameroon has a Samuel Eto’o problem. For those of you who don’t know, Samuel Eto’o is Cameroonian, is arguably the best African lesser footy player of all-time, and an all-time great. In 2011, when he could still play at a high level, instead of staying in a top domestic league in Europe, Eto’o signed with Russian league’s Anzhi Makhachkala for an obscene amount of money. Eto’o’s reasoning for the signing was because he needed the money to make an impact on Cameroonian politics when he retired.
Eto’o did get into politics and from at least everything I’ve heard from Cameroonian students I’ve had, he quickly became just another politician. Eto’o has used that pull to become Cameroon lesser footy’s President and has become the guy who picks the team, as opposed to the manager. This has made the club team selection extremely political.
Most notably, Cameroon, who is really weak on defense, left out Michael Ngadeu-Ngadjui, and defensive midfielder Jean Onana off the team. Wanna take a guess as to which players had a falling out with Eto’o? Things have gotten so bad, Zambo Aguissa, who is Cameroon’s best player by a mile, almost missed the cut, as Eto’o has been taking shots at him recently by saying he’s not a good teammate.You know things are bad when your country’s best player being named to the roster is seen as a surprise because he and the FA president don’t get along.
To make things worse, Eto’o went on record recently saying that Cameroon will win the World Cup. That’s a lot of pressure for a team that many peg as the favorites to finish last in their group.
Prediction:
The best-case realistic scenario for Cameroon is that they pickup 5 points and get second place. From there, they’ll likely get their collective shit pushed in by Portugal or Uruguay.
The realistic worst-case scenario for Cameroon is that they go oh-for and don’t collect a point.
Anyway, I’ll be cheering on the Cameroonians against Switzerland, so look out for presumably the only overweight, balding white guy cheering for Cameroon. Enjoy the games!
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