Lion cubs

New-look Cameroon arrives on time, ready to play

PARIS (AP) -- Cameroon's arrival can be considered the first success of the Confederations Cup.

A year ago, the African champion blamed its group-phase exit from the World Cup on a 60-hour journey to Asia that brought the team to Japan five days late and full of fatigue and jet-lag.

Playing its most significant competition since that fiasco, Cameroon arrived at its training ground outside Paris last week virtually hassle-free.

Of course, Paris -- where the team was delayed on its World Cup trip when players refused to fly because of a pay dispute -- is a much more common destination for Cameroon. Nearly half of the squad's 23-man roster for the tournament is composed of players based in France.

"We have 10 days in which to train," the team's German coach Winfried Schaefer said. "That should be long enough, even though we are reorganizing the team and no longer have such experienced players as Mboma, Lauren and Kalla to rely on."

With star striker Patrick Mboma, midfielder Lauren Etame Mayer and defender Raymond Kalla opting for retirement from national team play or just skipping the Confederations Cup, Schaefer will have to rely on a large crop of new players.

The influx of fresh faces has prompted some observers to ditch the team's usual nickname of "Indomitable Lions" and replace it with "Young Lions."

Mohamadou Idrissou, a 22-year-old striker for Hannover in Germany's Bundesliga, may be the most promising of the bunch. Another forward with great potential is 21-year-old Achille Emana.

Emana's father, Rene, and uncle, Tobie Mimboe, both played for Cameroon in the early 1980s when the African nation first burst onto soccer's world stage. Given the choice of playing for France at the Under-23 level or wearing the green jersey made famous by his family members presented a dilemma for Emana, who is a regular in the lineup for French first-division side Toulouse.

While he is not new to the international stage, Real Mallorca striker Samuel Eto'o can also be considered a "Young Lion" at age 22.

With 41 caps, Eto'o has scored more goals for the national team than anyone else on Cameroon's current squad. Manchester City midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe, a relative veteran at 28, comes next with eight goals.

"It is time to bring in some new players, as we have had the same squad for a long time," Foe said.

Another veteran is captain Rigobert Song, a Lens defender with 71 caps.

Song and Foe will guide the young players through what is considered the tougher of the two four-team groups.

In Group B, Cameroon meets World Cup champion Brazil, third-place finisher Turkey and quarterfinalist the United States.

"I watched the Turks recently in England," Schaefer was quoted as saying by fifa.com. "They're a powerful side and it was no coincidence they came third at the World Cup. The Brazilians are the hotshots of international football and I love their game. But we have a strong belief in ourselves."

Unlike some other countries that are not fielding several of their top players (Brazil and France) for a tournament that lacks in prestige, fans in Cameroon are getting genuinely excited and Schaefer sought to control the high expectations.

"Every international has enormous status over there, even if it is against Madagascar or Tunisia," he said. "But when a team is being rebuilt and young players being tried out, results are not always top priority. But the outcome is still important."

 

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