Excerpt from the chapter The Indomitable Lions
Just three minutes into the match Argentina created a chance to score but N’Kono had no problem clearing it out. Cameroon unleashed an intense game that looked very physical, and Maradona was marked specifically with a nasty tackle by Benjamin Massing. Argentina had the ball possession but they failed to make use of clear scoring opportunities, overcoming Cameroon’s defense.
Starting with a counterattack by Mfede, Cameroon probed the Argentinian defense a few times. As Maradona had dreaded in the beginning, with the overwhelming crowd support, the Cameroonians quickly found their groove, grew confident, and began playing like equals, with no fear - like a pride of lions, no longer like deer caught in the stadium floodlights, but now literally hunting down the Argentinians.
In the 31st minute, Burruchaga got a chance, trying to convert a pass from Maradona, but it did not go past N’Kono’s safe hands. At that point, some people started thinking Joseph Bell’s benching was a masterstroke decision, but it was already well known that it had nothing to do with his goalkeeping skills; his hubris had done him in instead - probably better for Cameroon. As the game progressed toward halftime, with no showering of goals by the Argentinians in sight, the crowd’s jeering of Argentina, especially Maradona, shifted to overwhelming support for Cameroon as they fought valiantly against a team with an intimidating football history and stars. Maradona had been instrumental in Napoli overcoming the home club AC Milan to clinch the Serie A title, and that augmented the spectators’ animosity toward anything associated with him. By the time the halftime whistle was blown, it was obvious that in a matter of 45 minutes, a team that had been doubtful about its capabilities had grown out of such fears and started playing like world beaters, while Argentina was found literally defending its title and protecting itself from a physical onslaught it had never experienced.
The rough tactics Cameroon deployed to deny Argentina a victory at all costs eventually had to pay a price. In the 61st minute, André Kana-Biyik tackled Caniggia from behind while he was heading toward the goalpost, and he was shown a red card for the foul. He had to leave the field immediately, and Cameroon was down to ten players, as substitution is not allowed after a red-card expulsion. A collapse of Cameroon’s defense was expected, but the opposite happened.
In the 67th minute, as if taking revenge for his brother’s expulsion, Omam-Biyik scored a clumsy goal for Cameroon, and the stadium was stunned at first and then erupted like a volcano. Emmanuel Kunde took a free kick, and Cyrille Makanaky lobbed it high into the goalpost area, where Omam-Biyik headed it down toward the goal, almost straight at Argentina’s goalkeeper Pumpido, a hero from the last World Cup, who had not had much to do until then while watching his teammates constantly test N’Kono at the other end. He fumbled, and the ball rolled into the net past the goal line. Cameroon’s players watched the sight in astonishment, and then one of them kicked it into the net again to make sure.
For a moment, Cameroon forgot about all its internal divisions and became a homogeneous country and Africa felt like one nation.