Bundesliga at AFCON | Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Cameroon previews | OneFootball

The next of our Get German Football News “Bundesliga at AFCON” preview sections will take a look at three West African powerhouses: Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Cameroon. All three count as genuinely awesome footballing nations that are generally always in the mix for the title. Cameroon finally captured their long sought-after fifth continental crown in 2017. Senegal finally won it all for the very first time in 2021. The Burkinabés – close to many a German’s heart – made the semis in both those years and lost to Nigeria in the Final back in 2013.

There’s generally never any complaints whenever one of these nations progress deep into the tournament. West Africans know how to honor football properly. Senegal, Cameroon, and Cote d’Ivoire (twice in the last decade) have all declared national holidays whenever their team won the Final. All three seek to buck a etrend som 30 plus years strong. Since Nigeria won the 1994 AFCON in Tunisia, a sub-Saharan team has never won whenever a North African country played host. Few would mind seeing it happen here.

Burkina Faso: “The Stallions”

Yes, ever since the Burkinabé duo of Jonathan Pitroipa and Wilfried Sanou settled in at SC Freiburg in the early aughts, there have been Stallion enthusiasts in Germany. The 2013 tournament squad – which featured both players along with former Mainz and Augsburg standout Aristide Bancé – happened to be one of the most entertaining and exciting in AFCON history. After the country made the intolerable mistake of putting Gernot Rohr in charge of the program for a little while in 2015, the 2017 incarnation was also legendary.

The enthralling 2021 side that punched through to the quarters via the unforgettable Round-of-16 PSO shootout win against Gabon (in the midst of a domestic coup no less) will always be remembered. There was double heartbreak for German observers last time around when the team couldn’t overcome an early Edmond Tapsoba own goal against Mali and got eliminated in the opening knockout round. Maybe, with a strong coach and an excellent run of form heading into the competition, they can make some waves this time around.

Notes on Burkinabé Football in Germany

Two years ago, quite a bit of talk revolved around Alassane Ouédraogo’s young son Assan. Alassane (capped a total of 62 times for country) hailed from the old Upper Volta and came to play for Köln, but couldn’t quite hack it. He then bopped around the lower leagues for a while playing for various Westphalian and Palatinate teams. Alassane’s son was ultimately born in Mülheim and grew up German. At the time of the 2023 AFCON (January 2024), Assan had just made his debut for the Schalke senior team and featured on the Christian Wück side that won the U17 European Championship that past summer.

It was generally known back then that Assan was truly a special player. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to win the U17 World Cup with Wück’s crew in November due to injury. This is sadly a story that keeps getting repeated. Unrivaled brilliance, followed up by another damn injury. Ugh. The poor kid, still only 19-years-of-age, has another bout of adversity to traverse. Somehow, one believes in his surprisingly mature sense of resilience. Ouédraogo is a Burkinabé, after all. Something about Upper Voltan culture jives with German values. His father never gave up and played 18 years of semi-pro football.

Assan can surely still claim his rightful place in the next generation of German footballing stars.

Bundesliga AFCON Representatives, Burkina Faso

Edmond Tapsoba, Bayer 04 Leverkusen

Talk about a player who everyone could recognize as special right away. When then 20-year-old Edmond Tapsoba joined Leverkusen during the January 2020 transfer window, it didn’t take long for him to start turning heads. Ahem. Yes, the COVID Era helped. Not much pressure for the players. Everyone focused on “deep-scout work” whilst watching games without spectators. None of that detracts from Tapsoba’s talent, of course. It’s just the case that the circumstances made it impossible for him to fly under the radar.

Now in his seventh season as a Bundesliga professional, Tapsoba is arguably better than he ever was. If the now 26-year-old has lost some pace, it certainly isn’t noticeable. In point of fact, Tapsoba has already equaled his goal scoring total from his last six league seasons in a season that isn’t even halfway through yet. The now 57-times-capped international has even scored two of his three career goals for country in the last couple of months. All of this while logging nearly maximum minutes for club in new and novel defensive assignments just about every week.

Tapsoba never fully got the amount of credit he deserved from the foreign audience during Leverkusen’s undefeated title-winning campaign in the 2023/24 season. Teammates Jonathan Tah and Odilon Kossounou grabbed most of the glory. Let it be known that Germans never dropped their obsession with Tapsoba. Many a grand debate was had about his defensive slants in the back-three. When there were inevitable form dips, Germans always found a way to blame the tactical plan. No one touches our star!

There probably would have never been any Leverkusen glory without Tapsoba and there’s absolutely no way this totally blown apart squad would be a top-four contender if Tapsoba had left with everyone else. Okay, perhaps the author is getting way too defensive here. By German standards, it’s quite normal. He’s simply the complete package one wants in a defender: fierce tackling timing, superb creativity on attack builds, and striking recovery speed. May he continue to thrive!

Cyriaque Irié, SC Freiburg

From Tapsoba, we head to this record purchase who has unfortunately only seen 30 minutes of action all season. Irié contracted malaria whilst on international duty during the September break and its taken the 20-year-old months to work his way back to full fitness. SCF trainer Julian Schuster deemed him fit enough to serve in the match-day 14 squad and the latest Europa League fixture, but he’s remained on the bench. Irié remains a solid talent who has scored two goals for country this autumn, including one in the September World Cup qualifier just before he was taken ill.

Senegal: “The Lions of Teranga”

It will undoubtedly prove very weird to watch a Senegalese team not coached by Aliou Cissé in this tournament. After nine years and six major tournaments in charge, Cissé bowed out last October. Pape Thiaw – who coached the squad of exclusively domestic players which plays in the separate African Nations Championship – stepped up and helped the team secure 2026 World Cup qualification. The new Lions of Teranga have lost only once in 11 matches under his aegis. One can consider them favorites to top Group D, which also features Botswana, Congo DR, and Botswana.

Notes on Senegalese Football in Germany

The two names that immediately spring to mind happen to be the two greatest Bayern München flops of the past few years: Bouna Sarr and Sadio Mané. Not a great feeling to ponder the fact that these two Senegalese internationals – who often performed splendidly on the national level – proved to be total Bundesliga busts that ended up costing Hasan Salihamidizic his job. Mané is still around incidentally, still only 31-years-of-age and still scoring plenty of goals. How different matters would have been without that crazy Leroy Sané “slapping incident”.

The famous Demba Ba actually played for Hoffenheim for several seasons before launching his career on the Isle. Heavily capped defender Salif Sané spent about ten years or so in the Bundesrepublik representing Hannover 96 and Schalke 04. Prior to the last two lousy years with the Königsblauen, he was actually a very successful defender. Probably the most famous Senegalese German footballer remains Souleymane Sané, who picked 55 caps in the 1990s whilst playing for Freiburg, Nürnberg, and Wattenscheid.

Bundesliga AFCON Representatives, Senegal

Nicolas Jackson, FC Bayern München

One of the weirdest loan deals in the history of football now arrives at the point in the season that was part of the negotiating formula. As everyone knows, Bayern carefully took into account this tournament when building an automatic purchase option into Jackson’s loan contract. Uli Hoeneß proudly declares that he himself crunched the numbers like the penny-pinching, beady-eyed, bean-counter that he is. Bayern are guaranteed not to be on the hook for purchasing Jackson permanently thanks to his arithmetical mind. Ugh.

That’s pretty much all one can say about Jackson’s brief German showdown. It’s become literally impossible to enjoy watching him thanks to all the “exclusives” floating around about the details of the loan deal. Bayern excels in taking the fun out of football in so many different ways. Jackson’s time in Germany being deliberately limited means that few German football fans have cause to tune in here. Some might root for Senegal due to the fact that former Köln professional and Germany U21 international Ismail Jakobs is on the team.

Cameroon: “The Indomitable Lions”

The 2017 championship squad produced some of the best goals in a tournament known for often being low-scoring, physical, and slow to get rolling. In the current young century, Cameroon produced so many players (Christian Bassogog, Samuel Eto’o, Patrick Mbomba, Vincent Aboubakar, and Karl Toko Ekambi) just to name a few) who totally dominated this competition. The Indomitables have delivered three continental titles since 2000. The two teams that won in the 1980s, not to mention the 1990 World Cup quarterfinal team, continue to conjure up great memories.

The 2021 team that fell to Egypt in the semis during the 2021 hosted tournament still conjures up heartbreak as a Senegal vs. Cameroon Final would have been beyond perfect. The 2023 incarnation – undone by certified “German Football Killer” Ademola Lookman in the Round-of-16 produced its fair share of pain. This year’s team faces a tough group that also features Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, and Mozambique. There’s also been a form crisis heading into the tournament and ahead head coaching sacking (Marc Brys) just days before the tourney following the 2026 World Cup qualifying failure.

Notes on Cameroonian Football in Germany

We’ll have to first return to the topic of German national team trainers here, noting that – in contrast to some of the many other examples – some German coaches were able to enjoy some success with this program. Longtime Karlsruher SC trainer Winfried Schäfer actually did lead Cameroon to the title in 2002 and that very strong group stage in the 2002 World Cup. Notorious African journeyman Otto “Iron” Pfister took these Lions all the way to the AFCON Final in the 2008 tournament.

All of this was well and good until legendary German trainer Volker Finke of SC Freiburg fame oversaw one of the worst eras in this country’s history. Finke oversaw the horrible group stage exits in the 2014 World Cup and the 2015 AFCON. It proved a horribly ignominious end that forever stained his hallowed career. Some coaches merely need to stick to retirement and leave their records alone. If Christian Streich ends up taking his un-sated hungry to compete to the continent, the author will be most pissed.

On the player front, plenty of national team heroes called Germany home at some point. Georges Mandjeck, Joël Matip, Edgar Salli, Jacques Zoua, Timothée Atouba, Mohamadou Idrissou, Bill Tchato, Lucien Mettomo, and scores of others all put their time in. Hamburg born Cameroonian national team striker Eric Maxim Choupo Moting became something of a German hero when he totally transformed his busted career with a late renaissance for the German record champions.

Pretty much all Germans like Choupo.

Not good enough for Mainz and Stoke you say?

Hell with it! We’ll take him.

Bundesliga AFCON Representatives, Cameroon

Christian Kofane, Bayer 04 Leverkusen

It’s been quite the ongoing saga for this breakthrough Bundesliga star over the course of the past autumn. Will he report? Will he remain? In the end, a compromise was reached. Kofane is due to join up with the FECAFOOT program slightly late after contesting his final Bundesliga match this weekend. The young striker has put up incredible numbers (five goals and five assists in 24 appearances across all competitions) and has rightfully seen his estimated market value skyrocket from €5m to €22m since joining Germany’s red company team in somewhat controversial fashion this past summer.

On the topic of “controversy”, the author should probably point out that it’s next to impossible that this lad is only 19-years-old. No way. This is another African age falsification case like that of Youssoufa Moukoko or Stuttgart’s Silas. Kofane’s build and facial features leave one fairly convinced that he could potentially be in his mid 20s. This may potentially be one reason why his agent didn’t want him thrust into the spotlight so soon. The author honestly makes no judgements. Such things are part of the modern game and will keep happening indefinitely. In any event, the players aren’t to blame. 

GGFN | Peter Weis