Cameroon erase two-goal deficit to keep hopes alive
To put a lid on the Andre Onana controversy, Cameroon needed the kind of performance they produced against Serbia at Al Janoub Stadium where fortunes yo-yoed before the teams played a thrilling 3-3 draw. It is a result that meant Cameroon are not done with Doha yet.
Till after the hour mark, it looked like Samuel Eto’o assertion that Cameroon could go all the way was just a bombast of a federation president. They were trailing 1-3, Serbia having come back from Jean-charles Castelletto’s 29thminute tap-in with two goals in first-half stoppage time through Strahinja Pavlovic’s header in the 45+1 minute and Sergej Miliknovic-savic (45+3). When Aleksander Mitrovic made it 3-1 in the 53rd after an exchange of passes in the rival penalty area, the Lions looked anything but Indomitable.
But substitute Vincent Aboubakar showed why they are called that, pulling one back in the 64th with an audacious lob. Got on to break the Serbian high line, Aboubakar, who plays for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia, did that again in the 66th minute to set up Eric Maxim Choupo-moting for the simplest of tap-ins. It stopped a run of seven successive World Cup defeats for Cameroon.
Making his World Cup debut, Devis Epassy, a goalkeeper who also plays in Saudi Arabia, kept Cameroon in the game with a 77th-minute block to deny Mitrovic. And again in the 87th minute calmly cutting out Filip Kostic’s delivery from the left. Mitrovic was marginally off-side in second-half stoppage time but Epassy took the shot on his face after the Serbian forward broke through.
Epassy was in because Onana was out of the squad following a difference of opinion with coach Rigobert Song. According to media reports, Song and Onana had a falling out at Saturday’s training session, the Ajax goalkeeper refusing to heed Song’s directive to hoof goalkicks and not play out from the back. Eto’o had tried to mediate but relations between player and coach had broken down, the reports said.
Onana, 26, has served a drug ban, a 12-month sentence reduced to nine on appeal while at Ajax on whose rolls he was for six years. Onana moved to Inter this season where he was the No.1 from October to the break before the World Cup. “We are in a difficult tournament and the team is always above an individual. Andre wanted to step out and we accepted that,” said Song.
After Mitrovic hit the bar, Cameroon forged ahead following a corner kick with Castelletto tapping in a Choupo-moting header flicked back. Serbia too equalised from a set-piece. Dusan Tadic fired in the free kick in and Pavlovic headed in. Zambo’s inability to get the ball out with a back-volley with two Serbians pressuring him led to the second goal where Epassy only got a hand to Miliknovic-savic’s low drive. Mitrovic’s goal followed four passes, three in the penalty area. And then Cameroon showed lightning can strike twice in two minutes. African teams have provided colour and some of the competition’s most memorable moments. Think Cameroon in 1990, Nigeria in 1994, Senegal in 2002, Ghana in 2010. And after Monday, Cameroon in 2022.