1990: The Magic Year!

The romance President Paul Biya has had with the country’s national football team, the Indomitable Lions, dates decades but its climax was certainly in 1990 during the historic World Cup in Italy wherein Cameroon defied all bookmakers to create history whose fruits Africa still enjoys today. In effect, the hitherto little-known African side stunned the world during the opener of the Italia 90, as the competition was known, by beating the then defending world champions, Argentina.

With its star player, Diego Maradona, who was captain of the Argentina squad, bookmakers had tipped Cameroon as the underdogs with many almost asking the African flagbearer to prepare for nothing short of thumping from the world champions. In fact, sports analysts initially qualified the Cameroon-Argentina game as a mouse-cat match which surprisingly turned out to be a David-Goliath encounter.

Very few counted on the Lion’s fighting spirit which became legendary thereafter. The presence of the ‘Lion Man’ at the stadium for the opening game galvanised the king of the forest to go for nothing short of a kill. And the hunter, Argentina, was forced to become Cameroon’s first victim in the global football showpiece. The first match performance and the praises heaped on the entire squad, from the first citizen of the country to the man on the street, were more than motivating as the team cruised to the quarterfinals stage of the competition; unprecedented for an African team. The squad closed ranks to defend the honour of the entire continent and though eliminated at the quarterfinals stage, they left the competition’s village heads high and got a kingly welcome back home.

The first sportsman in his tribute to the boys during a hectic reception at the State House said, “You have raised African football to new heights… You have done an entire continent proud…” It couldn’t have been otherwise given that the performance increased the number of African places at the World Cup to five. The number hasn’t changed; over three decades after. President Paul Biya told them at the State House that, “You have proven that Africa can, in its own way, stand up and be counted. African can and must succeed in charting its own course, using its own models, its own genius, its own style and its own talents.”