Cameroon World Cup Team Profile

May 12th, 2010 | by: chris | View Comments

There’s something awfully intriguing about Cameroon. Each and every tournament the world waits for them to break out of their shells and begin to fulfill that potential. One on African soil would seem to be as good as any, but then the last two African Cup of Nations didn’t go so brilliantly.

And while this one is on their home continent and they’ll want to do well, it may be a bit about growth. This team is awfully young with some key members infants in the world of international football, and Brazil ‘14 might be the place to make their mark once again.

Of course it’s a young man’s game, so they might just have the leg up.

Nickname: Indomitable Lions

FIFA World Ranking as of April 28th 2010: 27th

Group X Matches:

Japan v Cameroon, June 14th, 4p, Bloemfontein
Cameroon v Denmark, June 19th, 8:30p, Pretoria
Cameroon v Netherlands, June 24th, 8:30p, Cape Town
Buy your Cameroon World Cup tickets here.

Kit: Their classic green with with angry lion for the home kit.

Buy the Cameroon kits in out store.

Coach: Paul Le Guen is something of a fan of bold moves; he also has his own methods and is a slave to the present, rather than the past. Taking Rigobert Song’s captain band and giving it to superstar Samuel Eto’o was the biggest of his bold moves, what with Song having been around longer than most of Cameroonian soil (or so it seems). He also left off Stephane Mbia from his World Cup squad, and named nine without caps to the 30 man. However, whatever he’s doing seems to have worked, because Cameroon were off to a disastrous start to qualifying (0-1-1) before Paul came in and led them to a pretty cushy spot in South Africa with four straight wins. They were less impressive at the African Cup of Nations, but he inspires more confidence than they once had.

Key Players: It starts and goes for a long, long way with Samuel Eto’o, Cameroon’s best player by some margin. In a word or three: he scores goals. A lot of them. Samuel has pace and finishing ability like few, if any, in the world.

Much of the squad is awfully young. The midfield is filled with talent yet to reach or just into their primes, including Achille Emana (27) and the exceptionally physically talented trio of Jean Makoun (26), Alex Song (22) and Eyong Enoh (24).

Defensively, Geremi and Rigobert Song have been around so long it’s impossible to believe they’re 31 and 33, respectively, particularly when factoring in the 242 caps between them. Finishing out that back four recently has been the talented Nicolas N’Koulou and and French-conversion Benoit Assou-Ekotto at leftback. The keeper is perhaps Africa’s best, Carlos Kameni.

Player with best YouTube video: Eto’o’s career up until this year looks awfully good. So does a name with multiple apostrophes.

Player with best name: There’s only one contestant: Jean II Makoun. Anyone who throws Roman numerals into the middle of their name simply cannot be topped.

Player with best nickname: They have what is simply the best nickname in world football, no individual is worthy of a sniff: Indomitable. Lions. Could there be anything more fearsomely fearsome? And what does an indomitable lion look like? Rather badass – like the Steve McQueen of sub-Saharan cats.

Qualification: As said above, the start was as bumpy as a Cameroonian dirt road, but they settled out nicely in the end conceding once – a 90th minute goal at that – in Le Guen’s four games.

Interesting: Cameroon hold two dubious World Cup card records: Rigobert Song is one of two men to have been sent off twice in a World Cup career (along with Zinedine Zidane), while the ‘02 game v Germany is tied with Netherlands v Portugal of ‘06 for most cards in a WC game (16). In short: they like cards.

National Anthem: Chant de Ralliement (The Rallying Song)

World Cup History:

Expectations: It’s very much relative to the group, as the Netherlands are clear favorites to win Group E, but Cameroon should be right in the thick of the fight for that second spot, and it wouldn’t be wholly surprising to see them into the knockouts.

Squad: Cameroon World Cup squad.

Blog: Shane takes care of the Cameroon World Cup Blog.

- More World Cup 2010 Team Profiles.