LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — Cameroon coach Rigobert Song came full circle on a memorable and bittersweet night for African soccer.
Jerome Ngom Mbekeli, the only member of the Cameroon squad to play for a Cameroonian club, delivered an inspiring run and cross to set up Vincent Aboubakar’s header and stoppage-time 1-0 winner. to make the Indomitable Lions the first African nation to beat Brazil in a World Cup.
Despite Friday’s victory, Cameroon finished third in their group and were eliminated.
Ngom Mbekeli, 24, was the last change for Cameroon with four minutes remaining. Song credited his own former coach, Henri Michel, with giving him a chance in 1994 when he was playing for local club Tonnerre Yaoundé making their World Cup debut.
“You need to trust the youth,” Song said through a translator. “Henri Michel gave me a chance. He saw the potential in me. Now I am the coach and I see potential in my young players.
“I knew that (Ngom Mbekeli) was a good quality player. He just needed a chance to prove it. Hopefully his performance can motivate other local players”.
Goalkeeper Devis Epassy: In action after regular starter Andre Onana was sent home for disciplinary reasons after a dispute with Song before Cameroon’s previous game, he earned man of the match honors for a series of difficult saves.
“No one knew me, not even in Cameroon, until I started playing for the national team a year ago,” Epassy said through a translator. “We can be proud of what we have done tonight. We show that we can also be a top team”.
Both Epassy and Aboubakar play for clubs in Saudi Arabia.
With eight goals in seven matches, the 22-year-old Aboubakar was the top scorer at the Africa Cup of Nations in January.
Song and Samuel Eto’o, president of Cameroon’s soccer federation, are instilling a strict discipline policy modeled on the European clubs they once played for: Song as a reliable defender and Eto’o as a standout striker.
“That’s where we’ve been disappointed in the past,” Song said. “Maybe we didn’t do everything right, so we’re focusing on discipline.
“The team should always take precedence over people. When you play for the national team, you have to do what is expected of you.”
While Brazil had already moved on and used mostly reserves, Cameroon became the first team to beat the five-time champions in the World Cup group stage since Norway in the 1998 tournament in France, ending the an unbeaten run of 17 group matches.
“Now we realize that we could have done better,” Song said. “But we are a young team and today we have seen a young team getting stronger and stronger, and we must congratulate them on their performance.
“It’s a real shame that we have to go home now,” Song added. “But we are going to keep working and keep improving.”
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Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
