World Cup 2022 team guides part 26: Cameroon
This article is part of the Guardian’s World Cup 2022 Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 32 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from two countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 20 November.
The plan
This will be Cameroon’s eighth appearance at a World Cup and they go to Qatar keen to make an impression. Rigobert Song’s side booked their ticket for the showpiece event by edging out the Desert Foxes of Algeria in the playoffs to become one of Africa’s five representatives at the tournament.
Results in 2022 have been mixed but Song was hoping to shape the team’s fortunes during a training camp in Yaoundé for players from the domestic league with the best of those joining the members of the squad playing in Europe. Back home expectations are high.
“We go to Qatar to win the World Cup,” Samuel Eto’o, who played at four World Cups and now is the head of the Cameroonian Football Federation, told the players in the dressing room after the decider against Algeria in March. “We enter each match to win. The others don’t have the same magic as we do.”
Quick Guide
Cameroon group fixtures
Show
Eto’o’s lofty Qatar ambitions are gaining popularity back at home. Being a man who achieved the unthinkable during his playing days, it is understandable that Cameroonians are joining his ambitions.
Cameroon line up in a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 formation under Song. They arrive in Qatar having been boosted by the announcement by Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo that he would represent the Indomitable Lions instead of France, a decision that sparked wild celebrations back in Cameroon.
Mbeumo is only one of several players who are part of what is now called the “Eto’o project” – getting players with dual nationality play for Cameroon. Others are the former Tottenham winger Georges-Kévin Nkoudou, who is now with Besiktas, and France-based defender Christopher Wooh (Rennes). With the former Watford sweeper Nicolas Nkoulou having ended a self-imposed five-year exile from the national team it easy to see why expectations are high.
The coach
He’s the man whose face is on the majority of billboards in Cameroon. Rigobert Song has earned rock-star status in the central African nation down the years. But then he has some pedigree. He is the nation’s most capped player of all time, who played at four World Cups and is only the second Cameroonian to qualify his country for the World Cup as a coach after Léonard Nséké in 1994. The 46-year-old, who took over from the Portuguese coach Antonio Conceição in February, is not the most flamboyant tactician but through his mental strength and combative character, he has developed a group of players and made them into a much more hard-working unit.
Star player
It may come as a bit of a surprise to regular Fulham watchers but André-Frank Zambo Anguissa is having a mesmerisingly good season with Napoli under Luciano Spalletti. Zambo Anguissa joined Fulham from Marseille in 2018 but struggled to impose himself as the club were relegated. Loan spells followed before a permanent transfer to Napoli this summer. For Cameroon he is a hugely important central midfielder who has five goals and four assists in 42 caps going into the tournament. If he can replicate his club form on the international scene as well as he did in the only other Fifa tournament he has played in (the 2017 Confederations Cup) then he can propel Cameroon to another level in Qatar.
André-Frank Zambo Anguissa has shone for Napoli this season and in midfield for Cameroon. Photograph: Visionhaus/Getty Images
Unsung hero
Karl Brilliant Toko Ekambi is 30 now but his importance to Cameroon has perhaps never been greater. He is one of the top scorers for the team this year, netting five goals at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations, not to mention the thrilling late effort against Algeria that secured progress to the World Cup. He has rarely got the recognition he deserves but has worked his way to the top, arriving at Lyon after spells with Sochaux, Angers and Villarreal. Operating has a left winger, he has 38 goals in 108 games for Lyon.
Probable lineup
Qatar stance
As in the other African countries who have qualified for Qatar, the issues of migrant workers’ rights and human rights have not been commented on by players, coaching staff or the people in charge at the Cameroonian Football Federation. Neither has the media spoken out. Cameroon is not paying attention to issues like these. And with Eto’o one of the ambassadors for the 2022 World Cup, that is perhaps no surprise.
National anthem
O Cameroon, Cradle of our Forefathers is known worldwide as the Rallying Song and symbolises the dreams and aspirations of Cameroonians as citizens of an independent republic. It also talks about the sacrifices of the nation’s forefathers. It was composed in 1928 by René Djam Afame, who cowrote the lyrics with Samuel Minkio Bamba and Moïse Nyatte Nko’o. At the start of the 1960s an English version was written by Bernard Nsokika Fonlon and it was officially adopted in 1978.
All-time cult heroes
Making a decision between Samuel Eto’o and Roger Milla on the aspect of the most celebrated Cameroonian footballer of all time is a very tough ask indeed. Both players achieved a lot. Eto’o’s 56 goals is a record for the Indomitable Lions while Milla is the highest scorer at World Cups with five, and is still the oldest player to have scored at the tournament. He was the leading light, at the age of 38, when he took Cameroon to the quarter-finals of Italia 90, one of only three times an African country have got that far. Eto’o, it is fair to say, is the most celebrated Cameroonian footballer of all time because of his club career.
Angu Lesley N Akonwi writes for Kick442. Follow him here on Twitter.