Indomitable

Cameroon aiming to stamp authority on upstart Senegal

Cameroon's Pierre Nlend Wome defends the ball during his side's 3-0 semifinal win over Mali. AP

BAMAKO (Reuters) -- Defending champion Cameroon takes on Senegal in the African Nations Cup final Sunday, eager to demonstrate its superiority over a team it clearly regards as an upstart.

Cameroon, which has won all its five games in the Nations Cup so far and kept a clean sheet in each one, says Senegal has been hogging the spotlight at the tournament without doing anything to deserve it.

The Senegalese, who in June will play at the World Cup for the first time, surprisingly reached the final with a 2-1 extra-time win over Nigeria despite playing with 10 men for more than an hour.

Their flair and physical strength -- in particular El Hadji Ousseynou Diouf in attack -- have been among the talking points of the competition but the Indomitable Lions remain unimpressed.

"I think all of Cameroon wanted to play against Senegal," said Cameroon midfielder Lauren Etame Mayer.

"It's not that we have a big rivalry, it's that people have been talking all the time about Senegal, how they are going to play France at the World Cup etc etc, when in fact the champions of Africa are Cameroon.

"All of Cameroon is waiting for this game and we have to win."

Cameroon, which is preparing for its fourth successive World Cup, has eased through the tournament with its only real scare coming in a first-round group game against Ivory Coast when it survived an onslaught from its opponent before grabbing a late winner.

Ruthlessly efficient

Its ruthlessly efficient performances have suggested that the influence of Winfried Schafer, the first German to coach the Indomitable Lions, is already rubbing off on a team once famed for indiscipline, even though he does not speak French and communicates with gestures.

Its only injury worry is striker Patrick Mboma, who has scored three goals in the tournament.

The Parma player missed Thursday's 3-0 semifinal win over Mali with a foot injury and is doubtful again for Sunday's match.

But the excellent performance of replacement Pius Ndiefi, who made the first two goals for Salomon Olembe, meant Mboma was hardly missed.

While Cameroon's team have Europe-wide experience -- with players based in Turkey, France, Germany, Spain, England, Sweden and Italy -- Senegal's squad is made up almost exclusively of players based in France.

Its best previous performance was a semifinal place in the tournament it hosted 10 years ago but it did not even qualify for Burkina Faso in 1998 or Ghana and Nigeria two years ago.

But it has suddenly emerged as a major power in African soccer and captain Aliou Ciasse says the so-called Lions of Teranga have proved with their performances that their qualification for the World Cup was no fluke.

"We have now proven to everybody the talent and quality in our squad. Senegal is now highly respected in Africa," Cisse said Friday.

"We deserved to win (against Nigeria) and we hope to do so again on Sunday."

Senegal will be without midfielder Pape Sarr who was sent off in the first half of Thursday's match.

Schafer overturns bench ban

BAMAKO (Reuters) -- Cameroon's coach Winfried Schafer will be allowed to sit on his team's bench for Sunday's final after winning an appeal Saturday against a one-match suspension.

The ban on the German-born coach was commuted to a suspended sentence, Confederation of African Football (CAF) officials said.

An appeal against goalkeeping coach Thomas Nkono's one-year ban from all CAF activities was still being heard Saturday.

The bans were announced by the CAF on Friday after a bizarre incident before Cameroon's semifinal win over Mali the previous day when Nkono was handcuffed and beaten by police.

Witnesses said Nkono, Cameroon's goalkeeper at the World Cup finals in 1982 and 1990, was standing at the side of the pitch talking to team members and watching the stadium's big screen when he was set upon by police.

He was dragged kicking and screaming off the pitch by the police, furiously displaying his handcuffs to the international media.

Nkono was later released and returning sobbing to the team's changing room, where Schafer refused to go ahead with the game.

CAF officials intervened and the match went ahead with Cameroon, the defending champions, beating Mali 3-0.

Mali's president Alpha Oumar Konare apologized to Cameroon after the incident but the CAF secretary general Mustapha Fahmy said Saturday that Nkono had not been carrying the correct accreditation and commended the police action.

The CAF banned Nkono for a year, though the ban will not apply to the World Cup in South Korea and Japan in May and June.

Schafer had been accused of insulting the match commissioner, Said Belkhayat of Morocco, during the furore in Bamako.

Thursday's semifinal was also marred by a fight outside the stadium's media center between members of the Cameroonian staff and police when a policeman tried to grab a bag belonging to the Cameroon doctor as the visitors climbed off their bus.

The 52-year-old Schafer is on his first coaching assignment outside Germany, having made his name as a fiery personality in the Bundesliga where he coached Karlsruhe for 12 years and then had half a season with VfB Stuttgart.

His first match in charge of Cameroon was a friendly draw away against Poland in November and his side have won seven straight games since. As a player, Schafer won the UEFA Cup in 1979 with Borussia Moenchengladbach and played more than 400 league matches in a career from 1968 to 1985. He also had spells at Kickers Offenbach and Karlsruhe.

Metsu makes history with Lions from west Africa

BAMAKO (Reuters) -- Senegal coach Bruno Metsu has been at the helm of Senegal's surprise emergence as a World Cup qualifier and now its first appearance in an African Nations Cup final.

The Frenchman, who turned 48 during the tournament in Mali, became the first man in history to take the Lions from west Africa to the World Cup finals and signed a two-year contract in November, which will keep him in charge of the Senegalese side until the end of 2003.

Metsu, born in Coudekerque, took charge of Senegal in October 2000 and has taken the side through a run of 19 matches this year, with just three defeats.

Before that he coached at five clubs in France, the last of them Valence in the second division. His coaching career started at Beauvais, where he also ended his career as a player.

The other clubs he coached at were Lille, Sedan and Valenciennes.

As a player, Metsu was just as well travelled, starting at Dunkerque, then moving to Anderlecht in Belgium before spells at Lille, Valenciennes, Nice and Beauvais.

 

Related information
Stories
African Nations Cup 2002 Index
Multimedia
Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video
Search our site	Watch CNN/SI 24 hours a day
	Sports Illustrated and CNN have combined to form a 24 hour sports news and information channel. To receive CNN/SI at your home call your cable operator or DirecTV.

Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.