{"id":32376,"date":"2017-02-07T02:19:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T02:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/how-cameroon-s-indomitable-lions-roared-again\/"},"modified":"2017-02-07T02:19:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T02:19:43","slug":"how-cameroon-s-indomitable-lions-roared-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/how-cameroon-s-indomitable-lions-roared-again\/","title":{"rendered":"How Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions roared again"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Cameroon won their fifth Africa Cup of Nations trophy in Gabon on Sunday and it was arguably their greatest triumph.}<\/p>\n

World Cup star Roger Milla was the lynchpin of the victorious 1984 and 1988 sides, while the back-to-back title winners of 2000 and 2002 were led by Samuel Eto’o, a four-time winner of the African footballer of the year award.<\/p>\n

But the class of 2017 was shorn of stars – in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

Prior to the tournament, Cameroon’s most high-profile player was Joel Matip of English Premier League side Liverpool but like some half a dozen others, the defender refused to honour his call-up for the 2017 finals.<\/p>\n

The players’ excuses ranged from differences with the federation to not wanting to leave their clubs midway through the European season.<\/p>\n

Yet their absence galvanised those who did travel to Gabon, where even a mid-tournament row over player bonuses refused to distract this generation of Indomitable Lions, as the team is known.<\/p>\n

What was notable about that dispute – which saw the players offered a bonus for reaching the semi-finals that was somehow four times smaller than that offered for the quarter-finals – was the way in which coach Hugo Broos publicly backed his players.<\/p>\n

“Even without the money, we are still performing and this is very important – it shows that the players are not here for the money, but for the nation,” he told the world’s media.<\/p>\n

Little loved when he took over despite a trophy-laden CV in his homeland, the Belgian has performed a mightily-impressive job in his first national team coaching role.<\/p>\n

Not only has he consistently said the right things at the right times, he also scoured far and wide for players – one member of the squad plays in Angola – and impressed both tactically and with his swift decision-making.<\/p>\n

Note the way in which he dropped right-back Ernest Mabouka, who struggled in the opening game, while also being brave enough to change his strikers throughout the group stage as he sought the best format.<\/p>\n

The bedrock of Cameroon’s success was their defence .<\/p>\n

Just 21, goalkeeper Fabrice Ondoa kept the side in the tournament with a stoppage-time block against hosts Gabon in their final group game before saving decisively against Senegal’s Sadio Mane in the quarter-final penalty shoot-out.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Ondoa, who can’t even get a game for Seville’s B side in Spain, the central defensive pairing of Adolphe Teikeu and Michael Ngadeu – Cameroon’s top scorer – were immense.<\/p>\n

A disciplined unit, they were alert to danger thanks to their excellence in the air and impressive reading of the game – despite only having first played together in September.<\/p>\n

Guarded against Senegal, Cameroon then threw caution to the wind against Ghana in the semi-final and reaped their reward with a convincing 2-0 win.<\/p>\n

In the final itself, this team – whose unity was ever clearer to see – showed yet more courage when coming from behind after Arsenal’s Mohamed El Nenny opened the scoring early on.<\/p>\n

Egypt had not lost a Nations Cup match since 2004 – a run of 25 games – but after Nicolas Nkoulou equalised, Vincent Aboubakar produced a moment of magic two minutes from time as he lifted the ball over Ali Gabr to fire home a dramatic winner.<\/p>\n

Thrown on by Broos at half-time, the substitute was, incredibly, the first Cameroonian striker to score in Gabon.<\/p>\n

Special mention must also go to captain Benjamin Moukandjo, man of the match in the final, and Christian Bassogog, the pacey 21-year-old named Player of the Tournament – and who has been a delight to watch.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the winger was playing in the third tier of American football – but after a move to Denmark, where Broos scoured the opinion of some friends, the left winger earned his first cap.<\/p>\n

That was just 12 weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Having overcome countless challenges en route to winning a first title since 2002, the looks on Cameroonian faces following the final whistle summed up their achievement.
\nMany of the players simply struggled to believe they had done it – one final twist in a tournament full of surprises – but one which was hugely merited.<\/p>\n

\"Cameroonians<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Cameroon won their fifth Africa Cup of Nations trophy in Gabon on Sunday and it was arguably their greatest triumph.} World Cup star Roger Milla was the lynchpin of the victorious 1984 and 1988 sides, while the back-to-back title winners of 2000 and 2002 were led by Samuel Eto’o, a four-time winner of the African […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32376"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32376"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}