Sources at the Nigeria Football Federation hinted
that Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr will be on
the spectators stand as the Indomitable Lions
will be taking on their Chilean opponents.
Cameroon will be leaning on its goalkeeping
cousins of Fabrice Ondoa and Andre Onana who
will be re-enacting the goalkeeping rivalry of
Joseph-Antoine Bell and the legendary Thomas
Nkono.
The two goalkeepers have much in common, not
least the fact that they are cousins and were
born within three months of each other.
Both spent time at the Samuel Eto’o Foundation
before joining Barcelona’s famed La Masia youth
academy, where Ondoa – as is the case with the
national team – got the nod ahead of his
younger cousin.
But unlike the previous sets of Indomitable Lions,
this particular class is lacking in high profile
players. But team bonding remains the strength.
“We’ve all become firm friends,” skipper
Benjamin Moukandjo explained to FIFA media
team.
“When it’s just us, we tell jokes and make fun of
each other, but once we’re out on the training
pitch, everything gets serious again – we know
when we need to get down to work,” Moukandjo
explained
Today’s match is the first time Cameroon and
Chile are meeting after their previous meeting at
France ’98 World Cup 19 years ago. At that group
round encounter, score line was stalemated at
1-1 in Nantes following strikes from Jose Sierra
and Patrick Mboma.
Chile are the sixth South American side to enter
the Confederations Cup after Argentina, Brazil,
Uruguay, Bolivia and finally Colombia, who were
the last South American representatives to make
their tournament bow in 2003.
In all eight matches featuring Cameroon to date,
only one side scored. Four of the games finished
1-0 (with three wins for the central Africans and
one defeat), three ended 2-0 (one victory and
two losses) and the other was a 0-0 draw.
0 comments:
Post a Comment