The past few weeks have seen a flurry of player movement involving Cameroonians. Making the biggest headlines recently was Arsenal acquiring via loan, with an option to purchase, teenage defensive midfielder/centerback Alexandre Song from Bastia. Song had been training with Arsenal for the past few weeks and made enough of an impression where the English club decided to acquire him.
Transfers
While Alexandre Song (18) looks to be a future Indomitable Lion, a past Cameroon defender has also been on the move. Centerback Raymond Kalla, after an unsuccessful trial with Marseille, has signed with Sivasspor, a newly promoted club in Turkey’s top level the Super Lig. Also training with Sivasspor, and hoping to sign shortly with the club is forward Emile Mbamba who recently left Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel.
Coming to Israel is central defender Jean Dika Dika, formerly with LASK Linz in Austria. Dika Dika signed with SC Ashdod where he’ll be forming a central defensive partnership with countryman Ernest Etchi.
Goalkeeper Boukar Alioum signed with Samsunspor also a club in Turkey’s Super Lig.
We had previosuly reported in our weekly updates of Cameroonians in league action that forward Patrick Suffo had signed with Odd Grenland and defender Gustave Bahoken with Aalesund both in Norway.
Daniel Maa Boumsong is a young Cameroonian midfielder who has been promoted from the youth team to the senior squad at Italian giant Inter Milan. The 18 year old Boumsong is the youngest player enrolled by Inter Milan on their list of eligible players for the Champions League. With Inter’s star studded lineup it is likely that Boumsong won’t see much playing time this season but he will certainly learn practicing daily with stars like Adriano, Obafemi Martins, Juan Sebastian Veron, Luis Figo and Javier Zanetti. Boumsong also should benefit from advice from teammate and countryman Pierre Wome.
Also getting promoted to the senior team from his club’s youth squad is midfielder Stephane M’Bia with Rennes in France where he too should benefit from the advice of a veteran Cameroonian player Jean Joel Perrier Doumbe.
Right winger Thomas Job Iyock has been recalled by Sampdoria in Italy’s Serie A from his loan to Serie B team Pescara.
Making moves to clubs in lower divisions in Europe are the following players: forward Ernest Siankam to Nice (Ligue National, France’s D3), centerback Thierry Gathuessi to Cannes (France D3), forward Cyrille Florent Bella to Rot Weiss Oberhausen (Germany’s Regionalliga, their D3) and forward Thierry Fidjeu to SV Horn (Austria’s version of D3).
Getting released by their clubs were midfielder/fullback Patrice Kwedi (Aarhus/Denmark) and defender Landry Ebanga Kebe (FC Meyrin/Switzerland).
European Competition
Multiple Cameroonian players were in action this week in the 3 European club competitions.
Champions League
The Champions League Third Preliminary Round, First Leg matches were played this week and the game between Switzerland’s FC Thun and Sweden’s Malmo matched Armand Deumi (Thun) against Joseph Elanga (Malmo). Deumi started at centerback and Elanga played left back in the game where Thun surprised Malmo with a 1-0 win in Sweden. But Deumi was forced to leave the match after only 16 minutes with an adductor muscle injury. It is now being reported that he’ll be out at least a month which means he’ll not only miss the return leg against Malmo in 2 weeks time but likely will also be out for Cameroon’s vital World Cup qualifying match at Cote d’Ivoire.
Despite press reports that England’s Middlesbrough were in town trying to negotiate his transfer hours before kickoff of Sporting Lisbon’s match versus Italy’s Udinese, Rudolph Douala started for Sporting and created several good scoring opportunities with his speed and movement but it was not enough as Udinese scored the only goal of the game to score a surprising upset win in Portugal.
Stephane Andre Bikey started at centerback for Lokomotiv Moscow in their match away to Austria’s Rapid Vienna. Bikey received two yellow cards 10 minutes apart in the second half and was sent off in the 74th minute. In the following minute Rapid tied the game up as the match ended 1-1.
Pierre Boya started at forward for Serbia’s Partizan Belgrade as they played a scoreless tie at Slovakia’s Artmedia Bratislava.
UEFA Cup
New signing Jean Dika Dika started at centerback for his Israeli club SC Ashdod in their UEFA Cup 2nd Preliminary Round, First Leg match at home versus Slovenia’s Domezale. Playing alongside Dika Dika was countryman Ernest Etchi whose error helped lead to one of Domezale’s goal. In the 34th minute Dika Dika scored to tie the match up and it ended 2-2.
Intertoto Cup
Timothee Atouba continued his strong play with new club Hamburg playing at left back in Hamburg’s 1-0 home win over Valencia in one of the three Intertoto Cup Finals first leg matches. Benoit Assou Ekotto did not play as his club Lens drew with Cluj of Romania.
