2017 FIFA Confederations Cup: Hugo Broos leads Cameroon into a bright future

Hugo Broos wasn’t the first choice for the vacant Cameroon coaching job back in February 2016. He wasn’t the second or third either. In fact, when the Cameroon FA was considering candidates at the time, the 65-year-old Belgian wasn’t on the five-man list for the job.

When his appointment was announced, it came as a surprise to all. There was dissent from the country’s sports media, and upon naming his first squad for a home clash against South Africa, one of the newspapers in the country called it a “bunch of sick men.”

Broos was 63 at the time with no direct experience in international football, and he was struggling to find work; it wasn’t hard to see why a nation that was already down on its luck doubted he could be their messiah. Sixteen months later, it’s a different story entirely.

Broos’ leadership and nous has turned his doubters into believers: a group of young, unheralded players who were supposed to be one of the worst ever Cameroon sides was crowned African champions in February, and now they are about to be introduced to the world at the Confederations Cup in Russia.

Broos’ remit when appointed was to keep the Indomitable Lions atop of their 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying group, with expectations at the minimum for the then-four-time continental champions. It was a sad indictment of where a once proud footballing stood, but recent history meant they were right to expect nothing heading into this year’s competition in Gabon. Since reaching the quarterfinal of AFCON in 2010, Cameroon endured a terrible run in the intervening period to the 2017 tournament: failed to qualify in 2012 and 2013, and finished bottom of the group in 2015 with only two goals scored.

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil proved a particularly depressing nadir for a once-great team as they were eliminated with three losses, nine goals conceded, and only one scored. To make matters worse, Benjamin Moukandjo and Benoit Assou-Ekotto had a go at each other during the closing stages of their 4-0 loss to Croatia.

Never mind the dire display on the pitch — the squad itself was riddled with in-fighting and obvious disharmony. As is now customary for any self-respecting African nation, there was also the small matter of an FA leadership crisis playing in the background. This didn’t seem like an environment where Broos could sow his seeds of wisdom.

Broos went to work immediately, ridding the squad of the troublemakers and prima donnas — most notably Alex Song and Assou-Ekotto — and replaced the core of the team with young, largely unknown players. Broos scoured the internet for an exhaustive list of Cameroon players from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, and then he began working his extensive list of contacts garnered from over 30 years of coaching to identify the players worth pursuing.

On the surface that sounds like a pretty straightforward thing to do, but as he found out, there were lots of Cameroonians scattered across the globe, and whittling them down to those good enough was an arduous task. Yet he kept at it, and with his team of assistants, he traveled far and wide to discover new players. The result was a 23-man squad containing 14 players making their tournament debut, spearheaded by eventual competition MVP Christian Bassogog, a product of Broos’ globetrotting efforts.

Broos, speaking with Nick Ames for Issue 24 of The Blizzard, explained in detail how Bassogog was scouted:

“In Bassogog’s case, I had some friends — former players of mine — in Denmark, so I called them: ‘I see there’s this guy, Bassogog, what kind of player is he?’ ‘Ah, coach, he’s a young player, very good with the ball.’ I said, ‘OK, we’re coming to see.’ So in September my assistant went over to watch him; after the game he phoned me and said, ‘Coach, I think you need to see him too; we have a good player here.’ I went to watch him, saw his qualities and decided that he had to be with us for the next game. He joined us for the World Cup qualifier against Zambia in November. I put him on for the last half-hour, saw what he did and thought, ‘Right, we’ve found him.’ Now he is getting plenty of chances and everyone can see what a good player he is.”

The manager’s lucidity in preparation and change of approach has since been rewarded, with the title win in Gabon proving once and for all that Broos was correct in his decision to let go of the old heads and give youth a chance. When eight established members of his squad chose to pull out to stay with their clubs in January, Broos was nonplussed, saying he needed players who were ready to give their all for the team anyway.

Broos favours the system over any individual player, and that explains why Nicolas Nkoulou and Vincent Aboubakar, Cameroon’s two biggest stars at AFCON, found themselves reduced to bit-part players. That they were both motivated enough to score both goals in the final which sealed Cameroon’s fifth title bodes well for Broos’ man-management skills and ability to keep everyone’s faith in the power of the collective.

The lack of egos means the manager is able to drill his side into a unit that follows his instructions to the letter, and as a result, the Indomitable Lions are a tough nut to crack defensively, playing on the counterattack after soaking up pressure from their opponents. It may not be to the liking of purists, but it’s unwise to argue against a method that has delivered a major tournament victory.

When the provisional 30-man squad for the Confederations Cup was announced in May, it was expected that the eight absentees would be afforded another opportunity to represent their country. But Broos stood by his word that only repentant players would make the cut, effectively bringing to an end an era of players holding the national team to ransom.

Of the octet, only Ajax first choice goalkeeper, Andre Onana (rewarded for his fine club form in the run to the Europa League final), and the Marseille defender André-Frank Zambo Anguissa — who was previously undecided over playing for Cameroon or France — made it onto the team. In total, 17 of the AFCON-winning group made it to Russia, with Clinton N’Jie paying the price for a dismal year with club and country, and Nkoulou retiring from international football. Broos has bucked the trend of African sides taking half-arsed stars to major competitions and is trusting his hungry young lions to upstage the odds once again as they did earlier this year.

With a core of talented and motivated young players, the future looks bright for Cameroon’s national team. It would certainly be unsurprising if they announced themselves to the world in the next couple of weeks in Russia. Not bad for a widely derided manager who took over what seemed like an impossible job 16 months ago.