Nigeria and Cameroon will renew their long-standing rivalry at the Africa Cup of Nations when they face each other in the last-16 round in Ivory Coast on Saturday. The match will evoke many memories for Cameroon coach Rigobert Song, who has a special history with the Super Eagles.
Cameroon have won the AFCON five times, second only to Egypt’s seven, and three of those triumphs came at the expense of Nigeria in the final. In 1984, Roger Milla’s Cameroon rallied to defeat Nigeria 3-1, and four years later, they repeated the feat with a 1-0 win in Casablanca under Claude Le Roy.
The most memorable, and controversial, encounter was in 2000, when the final in Lagos went to a penalty shoot-out after a 2-2 draw in extra time, with a young Samuel Eto’o scoring for Cameroon. Song, the captain of the Indomitable Lions, scored the winning penalty, but Nigerians will never forget Victor Ikpeba’s spot-kick that hit the bar and bounced over the line, but was not awarded by the referee.
“I have not been back to Lagos since then, and I don’t really plan to,” Patrick M’Boma, who netted for Cameroon in regulation time and in the shoot-out, told Jeune Afrique magazine recently as he reminisced about that day.
Now 47 and in charge of the team, Song leads his country into the latest clash with their neighbours at the Stade Felix Houphouet Boigny in Abidjan, the same venue that hosted the 1984 final.
Dramatic comebacks While Nigeria cruised through the group stage unbeaten with seven points and only one goal conceded, Cameroon struggled and only qualified thanks to a stunning 3-2 win over Gambia in Bouake, after trailing 2-1 with five minutes left.
Song, however, is no stranger to dramatic comebacks, both on and off the pitch. He was only 40 when he suffered a stroke in October 2016 and fell into a coma, before making a full recovery.
“I have already been pronounced dead and yet here I am, still alive,” he said earlier this week as he prepared for Cameroon’s crucial final group game.
While their last-16 opponents boast the African footballer of the year in Victor Osimhen, Song’s Cameroon side lacks obvious star names. The most familiar is Andre Onana, but the goalkeeper who is having a tough season at club level with Manchester United was benched by Song for the decisive game against Gambia.
Most of the attention around the Indomitable Lions is on Song himself, or on Eto’o, who is now his boss as the president of the Cameroonian Football Federation.
Song was under pressure after his team’s poor start at this AFCON, but he said he was not worried.
“I don’t panic, I don’t get stressed. I listen to and understand the criticism, I know what I have to do and I stay calm,” said the former Liverpool, West Ham United, Lens and Galatasaray player.
“I have lived with pressure since I was young. It is part of the game.” Song was appointed coach after Cameroon lost in the semi-finals as hosts of the last Cup of Nations in 2022, and led them to a historic win over Brazil at the World Cup later that year.
It was the first ever win for an African team against Brazil at a World Cup.
Now the hero of that 2000 final must orchestrate another win over Nigeria, who beat them 3-2 the last time they met at the AFCON, in the same last-16 round in 2019.
The winner will progress to a quarter-final against either Angola or Namibia.
