Breel Embolo, with a goal at the beginning of the second half, unbalanced the opening match of Group G of the World Cup between Brazil and Serbia and which gave the first victory of Qatar 2022 to Switzerland, to the despair of Cameroon, which had more chances clearer than the European ones and deserved more prize.
As fate would have it, Embolo, a player born in Yaoundé (Cameroon) in February 1997, was the one who acted as executioner in the World Cup start-up in his country of origin.
Embolo, a renowned French soccer attacker, has not had direct links with Cameroon for a long time, from where he emigrated early to carve out a career as an athlete abroad. First in Basel, where he settled and then, above all, in Germany, in the ranks of Schalke and Borussia Monchengladbach before leaving last June for Monaco.
It could not be another who unbalanced an open duel, with hardly a pause in the center of the field. Back and forth in which only he found the right one.
It was at the beginning of the second half when the striker of the Swiss team, who is enjoying his sixth consecutive World Cup in Qatar and who intends to reach the round of 16 for the third consecutive edition, received without any opposition a cross from the right by Xherdan Shaqiri and beat to André Onana.
Embolo did not celebrate it, which does not forget its origin. He accepted the congratulations but avoided the excessive joy that his teammates expressed with relief after seeing the match endangered by the real threat from Cameroon.
Rigobert Song’s ensemble was more threatening. After ten minutes the African team already had two. In the boots of Bryan Mbeumo and Karl Toko Ekambi. Only in the aerial game did Switzerland show itself superior but without complicating Onana.
After Embolo’s goal, Eric Choupo Moting was able to equalize, who performed a great individual action, reached the bottom and ran into Yann Sommer who prevented the goal again.
Switzerland appeared at the end to sentence and could not do it either. Ruben Vargas, in a counterattack, was able to avoid the final uncertainty but Onana got out of the situation when Cameroon was already in an open grave.
– Alignments:
1 – Switzerland: Yann Sommer; Silvan Widmer, Nico Elvedi, Manuel Akanji, Ricardo Rodriguez (Eray Comert, m.90); Remo Freuler, Granit Xhaka; Xherdan Shaqiri (Noah Okafor, m.72), Dijbril Sow (Fabian Frei, m.72), Ruben Vargas (Favian Rieder, m.81); and Breel Embolo (Haris Seferovic, m.72).
0 – Cameroon: Andre Onana; Collins Fai, Jean Charles Castelletto, Nicolas N’Koulou, Nouhou Tolo; Andre Zambo Anguissa, Samuel Oum Gouet, Martin Hongla (Gael Ondua, m.68); Bryan Mbeumo (Nicolas Moumi Ngamaleu, m.81), Karl Toko Ekambi (Georges-Kevin N’Koudou, m.74) and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (Vincent Aboubakar, m.74).
Goals: 1-0, m.48: Breel Embolo.
Referee: Facundo Tello (ARG). He showed yellow cards to Collins Fai from Cameroon and to Nico Elvedi and Manuel Akanji from Switzerland.
Incidents: match of the first day of Group G of the Qatar 2022 World Cup played at the Al Janoub Stadium. EFE
