Cameroon coach savours winning over critics

Cameroon coach Hugo Broos is savouring the prospect of Sunday’s Africa Cup of Nations final against Egypt having won over those who doubted him when he was appointed a year ago.

“There was a lot of negativity around me. It was not pleasant. I didn’t understand why at the beginning I wasn’t given my chance,” said the 64-year-old Belgian on Saturday when asked how he dealt with the initial scepticism surrounding his appointment.

Broos was appointed almost exactly a year ago and has revitalised a team that had been in disarray under Volker Finke and had not made it beyond the group stage of a Cup of Nations since 2010.

The Belgian had never coached an international team before but under him Cameroon have lost just once, and that in a friendly away against France.

In Gabon they have eliminated the hosts, Senegal and Ghana en route to Sunday’s final, where they will be hoping to win Cameroon’s first title since 2002.

He said: “When I started in Cameroon almost a year ago now, before arriving I already had a project in my head.

“As soon as I started, for me it was clear that I had two choices: either you do what the coaches before you have done, you don’t succeed and you leave, or you do what you have in mind, it doesn’t work out and you leave anyway.

“It is better to be sacked with your own ideas than doing what others before you have done.

“That has been my motto since the beginning. If it doesn’t work out, too bad for me, but I think today I can say that it has worked out.”