Cameroon wants you to know that it is hosting the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) for the first time in 50 years.
At Douala airport, signs are stuck to every pillar promoting sponsors. On a roundabout on the edge of the city, every flag of the 24 nations stands in a cluster, as if huddled together to protect each other from the blistering heat and 90 per cent humidity.
Billboards display the faces of the continent’s superstars – Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Kelechi Iheanacho, Edouard Mendy, Riyad Mahrez. One of the national television channels, CRTV, broadcasts with the tournament logo and mascot a constant presence in one corner of the screen.
Hosting this tournament matters to Cameroon’s reputation on a continent where football and politics are intertwined. Twice postponed due to Covid-19, the desperation to put on a show is demonstrable.
More on Africa Cup Of Nations
Salah's struggles, Senegal sweat on Mane fitness, and Aboubakar to star - Afcon predictions27 January, 2022
When every Premier League player will return from Afcon - including Liverpool's Salah and Mane26 January, 2022
'Sickening': Brain injury charity condemns decision to let Sadio Mane play on after collision26 January, 2022The country is beset by two conflicts, the first between Anglophone separatists and government forces, and the second fuelled by a Boko Haram insurgency in the north of the country that has caused the deaths of over 3,000 Cameroonians.
Samuel Eto’o, the new president of the Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot), knows that his premiership may be defined by the success of Afcon 2021.
But these tournaments always create a paradox. At breakfast in a hotel in Douala, members of staff, a travelling insurance salesman and I discuss Cameroon’s progression and the quarter-final against Gambia that will take place the following day – the latter introduced himself with a one-word question: “Fut-bol?”
There is excitement when Vincent “Aboutcho” Aboubakar is mentioned, the striker has carried a nation’s hopes on his broad shoulders over the past fortnight. Talk of other teams is minimal and they know little of Gambia’s chances. For them, it is the national team that accelerates their pride more than the tournament itself.
The advantages – economic and sporting – of hosting should be obvious. A third of the last 21 editions of this tournament have been won by its hosts and in nine of the last 13 they have been represented in the last-four. Hotels and restaurants will see a rise in custom, although only typically from media and officials. Intercontinental travel for supporters is rare at Afcon.
Douala is a sticky, sense-assaulting city. It is hard to work out whether the climate – it is 29 degrees and 90 per cent humidity by seven in the morning and the threat of thunderstorm constantly lingers in the air – quickens its pulse or whether its quick pulse makes it feel more hot and humid.
It is a metropolis built almost entirely of single and double-floor structures, where the view is blocked only by the fog of industrial air. As you approach the airport, the Douala Grand Mall hosts shops that sell flat-screen televisions and the latest mobile phones. It stands adjacent to unfinished concrete shells and makeshift homes.
This is Central Africa’s biggest port and Cameroon’s economic heartbeat, a city that has grown exponentially due to internal economic migration in the search for work. It is home to almost three million people and – it appears – at least a million small businesses. The rise of mobile phone and internet technology has caused a vast boom in the viability of kitchen-table companies, many of which cling to the roadsides like limpets on a coastal rock face.
The pace of life in Douala is transfixing. It is so emphatically the centre of its own universe that it tricks the mind into believing that there can be nothing quite like it beyond the edge of its urban sprawl; maybe there isn’t. The traffic system is comically chaotic, although that should be no surprise. Cars may only use the right side of the road but motorbikes use both, weaving into spaces like water into cracks and creating a honking, braking, fuming game of vehicular Tetris.
On the west edge of the city, the Japoma Stadium rises from the ground and appears double its height due to the vast empty car parks that surround it. It exists as its own oxymoron given its uncertain post-tournament future, a tangible mirage. The best road in the city is the one that runs around the stadium, as the old Afcon joke about infrastructure investment goes.
One cannot doubt the Japoma’s imposing magnificence, but the same questions about its long-term significance are obvious. If every tournament stadium on this continent provokes suspicions of a white elephant safari, there is good reason for cynicism in Douala. The three Elite One (Cameroon’s top flight) clubs already play in the 39,000-capacity Stade de la Réunification that stands far closer to the town centre. The Japoma will host Cameroon vs Gambia but has had its other quarter-final and semi-final taken away due to valid concerns over the state of the playing surface.
For now, none of that seems to matter. If hosting Afcon brings with it political power, succeeding at it matters too. President Paul Biya, now 88, faces criticism for the investment in both the stadium named in his honour (that will host the final if permitted following the stadium crush last week) and across the country as a whole that stands at around $700m (£523m). While the team is winning, that criticism is both easily deflected and can be translated into motivational slogans. Those slogans are working because the team is working too.
In 2017, supporters travelled from Cameroon’s two major cities to Libreville to watch their team beat Egypt and a country went wild in celebration at Aboubakar’s 89th-minute winner. Three weeks later, the trophy was paraded through the streets of Douala, where Player of the Tournament Christian Bassogog had a street named in his honour, where the celebrations continued. At times like these, everyone lives in the middle of the Venn Diagram between Cameroon supporter and Cameroonian.
More from Football
On Saturday afternoon, in Douala’s baking heat, that same striker is looking to repeat the trick and the population will again pray that he achieves it. In Bassagog’s old neighbourhood of New-Bell, there are new heroes – only five of that 2017 squad remain. Cameroon are favourites to reach their second semi-final in the last three Afcon tournaments; nobody else can beat that.
Douala’s roads will never be empty. Douala could never be near silent. But for two hours, as many people in this wonderfully chaotic city will do whatever they can to gather around televisions or simply mass together to await good or bad news. Cameroon has waited 50 years to host this tournament and it no longer feels unrealistic to believe that they can win it too. The uncomfortable question of legacy will come later; nobody is listening while their Lions remain Indomitable.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://bit.ly/3KWdFUD
Post a Comment