Cameroon coach Rigobert Song with the players during training at Al Sailiya SC Stadium, Al Rayyan, on Thursday.
Rigobert Song leads Cameroon into their do-or-die World Cup clash with Brazil on Friday and the game in Doha brings back memories for the Indomitable Lions coach of one of his first experiences at the tournament.
Song is now 46 but he was still just 17 when he played against Brazil with Cameroon at the 1994 World Cup in the United States and was sent off in a 3-0 defeat.
“You are taking me back. These are memories, and it was every kid’s dream to play against Brazil,” Song said when asked about that red card at a press conference yesterday.
“I was 17, it was in the United States and I found myself starting in that game against one of the best teams in the world when I had come straight out of the Cameroonian league. I did what I could do and maybe I didn’t know there were rules to be respected. The red card helped me mature as a player.”
Song went on to play in four World Cups as a player during a remarkable career which saw him turn out at club level for the likes of Liverpool and Galatasaray.
He then went to the 2014 World Cup as team manager of a Cameroon side who played Brazil in their last group game and lost 4-1.
Now at his sixth World Cup, Song knows Cameroon have to win Friday’s match at the Lusail Stadium and hope Switzerland do not beat Serbia in the other Group G game at the same time if they are to advance to the last 16.
“We need a result to stay in the tournament and we will do everything to get three points,” he said. “We have nothing to lose.”
