Cameroon’s German coach Winfried Schafer insisted that his side shouldn’t be judged by the disappointing goalless draw in Austria.
« If we have everybody on board again and we show more concentration throughout the whole match, we can go far in the World Cup, » he said. « All in all we have to be satisfied with the result. »
The African Nations champions clearly missed injured Sunderland striker Patrick Mboma, and were unable to find a way past Alex Manninger in the Austrian goal.
« We started well in the first half, but failed to convert our dominance into goals and when Austria improved on the break during the second half we committed many blunders, » admitted Schafer, the former Karlsruhe and Stuttgart boss.
Schafer used the absence of some of his regulars to test the form of players returning from injury. Pierre Njanka got his chance as did Manchester City defender Lucien Mettomo, in place of key man Raymond Kalla, while young keeper Carlos Idriss Kamni replaced 38-year-old veteran Jacques Songo’o at half time.
The experimentation hardly worked and Schafer will have been worried by the way a below-par Austrian side went close to winning the game in the second-half through Andreas Herzog and Markus Weissenberger.
