Key events
75 min Now Cameroon makes changes, Gonzalez and Tchamadeu – of Stoke City – replacing Wooh and Magri.
73 min Cooling time.
72 min Diakite and Kamano play a nice one-two, but Yongwa does really well to slide in and come away with the ball.
71 min Cameroon don’t have loads on the bench, but I’m surprised we’ve not seen a change because they’re playing 10 men and not dominating.
69 min Again, Cameroon move down the right, and Wooh charges forward from defence, but Diakite clears behind and the corner comes to nowt, Yongway sticking a poor cross behind when the ball ends up with him.
68 min What do we make of Ondoa’s mauve and lilac outfit? I can’t make up my mind.
67 min Ekambi, who’s been quiet, pumps into the box, and when the ball’s cleared, Ntcham leathers a shot over the top.
65 min Cameroon have gone quiet again. Guinea are managing the game well.
63 min Ondoa punches the free-kick clear, and Diakhaby is booked for yanking back the breaking Ntcham.
62 min Again, Guinea counter, Diakite reaching the ball before Moukoudi, nicking the ball away from him, and wearing the inevitable scything; Moukoudi is booked.
61 min “In live blogs and match summaries,” says Peter Oh, “I would like to see red cards annotated with descriptors.
For example:
*Clumsy
**Nasty
***Criminal.”
And ****Glorious
60 min Our players enjoy a cooling break.
58 min Magri has been a good outlet this half, and he has a cross deflected behind by Sylla; the corner is nodded out to someone, Kemen, I think, and his low shot almost takes a telling deflection but Diakite does well to step over it as it passes wide.
58 min “Many want to compare Guirassy to another Stuttgart legend, Mario Gomez,” returns Kári Tulinius, “but I think he’s different, less of a poacher. Gomez’s defining quality was that he’d jump into a meat-grinder if he thought there’d be a goal on the other side of it, but Guirassy has more finesse to his game. He’s very good at holding up the ball and bringing others into play, often unselfishly. His runs routinely surprise opposition defenders, and he can create pockets of space in crowded penalty boxes. So I’d say he’s an all-round number nine, with my only caveats being that he does tend to get injured, and confidence seems to affect him a lot.”
Ahahaha, imagine the state of him after 10 minutes at Old Trafford.
57 min Changes for Guinea: off go Guilavogui and Conte A; Diakite and Conte F replace them.
56 min …and he humps over the bar as if doing so on purpose.
54 min Jeanvier is late on Magri, introducing studs to ankle, and Cameroon have another free-kick, 25 yards out, right of centre. Again, it’ll be N’Koudou with it…
53 min I’d pay good money to watch this scrap.
53 min Cameroon win a free-kick down the left, the position similar to the one from which N’Koudou just crossed for the goal, but this time it’s cleared easily enough.
GOAL! Cameroon 1-1 Guinea (Magri 51)
This time, N’Koudou finds a decent cross, and though there’s no Vincent Janssen waiting for it, the delivery is fantastic, swung in to the back post where Magri is up all over Sylla, diverting his header down and back whence it came into the far side-netting. Cameroon needed that!
50 min The corner comes to nowt and for a second, Guinea have a counter, but Guilavogui’s pass is poor and now Cameroon build again.
49 min There’s a little more purpose about Cameroon now, Magri marauding down the right and crossing, but Sylla slides in to block behind.
48 min Guinea have looked decent on the counter so far and here they come now, Moriba driving through midfield only for Bayo to go too early, rule himself out of a through-pass, and see the move break down.
47 min “I thought that was harsh, as it goes,” writes James Humphries. “Could actually have seen him getting two yellows for each tread, but taken as a whole that looked like a booking-and-a-half at most; certainly ‘seen ‘em given’ territory, but I don’t know that a yellow is a clear and obvious error. Bloody VAR; at least I know who to get behind now, though!”
I know what you mean – it looked clumsy rather than nasty, but much as I’d enjoy the return of the reducer, I don’t mind if treading on someone’s achilles like he did is a strict liability red. Similarly, though, had the ref felt it was accidental, I’d not have minded if he’d stayed on.
46 min Off we go again. Can Cameroon, without a shot on target in the game, find something?
Back come our teams…
Half-time entertainment:
Half-time: Cameroon 0-1 Guinea
And Guinea have been well worth it; Cameroon have been horrendous. But they’ll be playing against 10 for the remainder, so join me in 10 to see how we go.
45+6 min Er not really. He whips towards the back post and Koné grabs well.
45+5 min Free-kick Cameroon, not far from the left corner of the box. Can N’Koudou find a decent delivery this time?
Kamano, the Guinea captain, is sent off!
He might’ve accidentally perpetrated the heel-trample, I guess, but there was no chance he was getting away with that, and his mates will now have to defend their lead with 10 men.
45+3 min He looks, looks again and looks again. I’m not sure why he needs so many goes at it.
45+1 min With Magri already booked for a foul on Kamano, Kamano is now booked for a foul on Magri. I’m choking up here! But it’s a nasty one, the old tread-on the-achilles – that’s a red card offence, I’m afraid, and for extra points he lands on the other ankle with his other foot – and the ref is going to VAR for a looksee!
45 min We’ll have four added minutes.
45 min Searching for Eto’o shirt, I came by this! ‘s
43 min N’Koudou isolates Conte, goes at him, and runs over the by-line. Of course he does.
42 min Cameroon give it away in centrefield and Moriba moves away with the ball, so Wooh fouls him immediately. He’s not booked, I’m not sure how, which reminds me that earlier, Magri was but I didn’t quite note it.
40 min Samuel Eto’o, the president of the Cameroon FA, is wearing a shirt that has a collar but that doesn’t fold; interesting. Meantime, there’s a break because Ekambi has caught Diakhaby with a stray elbow; he’ll be fine.
39 min Cameroon are playing a little better now, Kemen charging through midfield and finding Magri to the right … but whose cross has way too much on it, sailing beyond the back post.
38 min But Cameroon soon win a corner, Ntcham shooting low and hard when the ball breaks to him, but the effort is blocked, then N’koudo finds a better cross … that still winds up behind.
37 min Excellent fee from Kemen, who slides infield to Anguissa … only for Diakhaby to nail him him with another crunching and timely challenge.
36 min He cannot, Kone coming early to claim.
35 min N’Koudou goes down the right and Guilavogui shoves him over, so up come the big men from the back; can the Spurs legend find a better delivery this time?
34 min I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking of this scene every time we hear “cooling” used as a verb.
33 min We go again…
31 min Time for a cooling break.
30 min They are, though, starting to enjoy a bit more possession, and as I type, Magri intercepts a pass out of defence! But he can’t slide Ekambi in and Guinea counter, Sylla seeing Ondoa off his line and trying a lob from 35 yards … which drops over the top, though the keeper had it covered.
29 min There’s no getting away from it: so far, Cameroon have been miserable.
27 min Back to Guirassy, how would we describe him? Is he a predator, a poacher, an old skool number nine?
26 min Better from Cameroon, Ekambi finding Magri, who whips in a cross … that’s just behind Moukoudi.
25 min So far, Cameroon have looked way less threatening than did Nigeria against Equatorial Guinea yesterday. That is a low bar, and they’re nowhere near getting over it.
23 min Yongwa tries a ball down the channel but Diakhaby, the Valencia centre-back, is over really quickly to hump clear. He’s had a really good start to the game.
21 min Magri comes around the side of Kamano, knocks him over while winning the ball, and is booked. That looked a little harsh to me.
21 min Ah, excellent, our Bundesliga scout returns. “It’s a bit hard for me, as a Stuttgart fan, to separate my fervent desire for Guirassy to be as great as he appears, from how I’d dispassionately rate him,” says Kári Tulinius. “That said, he already seemed like a very good loan player last season, and I was surprised that Stuttgart were allowed to buy him for just nine million Euros. I wasn’t expecting him to be a goal-a-game striker, but he seemed like at least a twenty-a-season forward. I don’t know how he’d do at Manchester United, given how messy that binfire is, but he’d probably fit in nicely at West Ham. Though obviously I’m hoping he’ll stay in Stuttgart.’”