Cameroon became the first African nation to defeat Brazil 1-0 in third final Group G match. Cameroon came back to draw with Serbia 3-3 in the World Cup Group G match.
Mention the name of captain Vincent Aboubakar to a Cameroon supporter and they are likely to return with the nickname “Aboutcho”. It roughly translates as “my beloved” and gives you a good starting point for the regard with which Aboubakar is held in his homeland.
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The 30-year-old striker is heading into what could be a career-defining tournament, with the opportunity to score his first World Cup goal and claim third place outright in Cameroon’s all-time men’s goalscorer list behind Samuel Eto’o (56) and Roger Milla (43).
Even at the age of 12, Aboubakar, who has scored 33 times for his country, had been the anointed successor to those two legends of the Indomitable Lions.
Aboubakar followed Milla’s path into European football by joining French side Valenciennes after the 2010 World Cup. It had been during that tournament that Aboubakar made his competitive international debut, sharing the forward line with captain Eto’o as an 18-year-old.
He has already delivered much besides those many international goals. He featured in the Cameroon squad that won the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations and won its Golden Boot at this year’s AFCON.
Yet with Aboubakar, there remains a sense of untapped potential. Of unfulfilled billing. Maybe the man himself shares that view.
Maybe that explains what has appeared — on the outside — to be a one-sided beef with Egypt and Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah.
It began before Cameroon’s AFCON 2021 semi-final with Egypt, held in February this year.
As captain of the host nation and one game away from the final, Aboubakar was asked about Salah.
“He doesn’t impress me much,” Aboubakar told French outlet RFI. “I say it clearly because I’m an honest person and I have my way of seeing things. If he impressed me, I would say so. But he doesn’t.
“He’s a good player, he scores a lot, but he doesn’t produce a lot of stuff in the game. Of course, he’s doing good stuff in the Premier League because he’s been in a team that’s been there for years. He’s a good player but not at the level of someone like Kylian Mbappe.”
After a goalless 180 minutes, Cameroon went on to lose their semi-final 3-1 on penalties. Aboubakar was the only one on his side to score from the spot. The striker walked straight through the mixed zone without answering a question from the media.
Perhaps more surprising was that, faced with questions on the same subject before this year’s World Cup, Aboubakar dug deeper.
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“I understand people’s attitudes — he (Salah) is one of the best goalscorers in the Premier League,” Aboubakar told 90football.fr
“It makes sense that when you go on about a player like that, people will talk. But I did say that it was my opinion, my point of view. I don’t give a toss if people don’t like it. I’m not impressed by him. I can do what he does. I just don’t have the opportunity to play in a big club.”
There will be no opportunity to see Aboubakar and Salah go up against each other on the pitch at the World Cup, with Egypt failing to qualify, so there might be no conclusive evidence to shed light on the two big questions that remain.
Why the beef, Aboubakar? And is it really only the club teams that the striker has played in that have prevented him from reaching the same heights as two-time African footballer of the year Salah?
“The big attraction at this year’s AFCON was Mohamed Salah,” says African football journalist Gary Al-Smith.
“Aboubakar was asked about it and gave his opinion. As a top striker playing for the host nation, (he wanted) to give confidence to his people that they shouldn’t be scared of Egypt. It was like psychological warfare. I don’t even think Mo Salah knows who he is. I mean, obviously he does, but you get my point.
“Remember, Vincent was part of that Cameroon team even when Eto’o was at the peak of his powers. That is where his confidence comes from. He has played with the best. When they won AFCON in 2017, he scored the winning goal, so it’s not like he doesn’t back up his talk. He does.”
Another source close to the Cameroon camp, who did not want to be named to protect their relationship with the current group, sees the rivalry as a “fake competition” and little more than some “damaged pride” on Aboubakar’s side.
Of the opportunities Aboubakar has enjoyed, spells with Porto and Besiktas were the most high-profile. They brought four league titles and four seasons of Champions League football.
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“I interviewed Roger Milla a few years ago now and he told me Aboubakar needs to be happier on the field because he was always very serious,” says Pedro Cunha, editor-in-chief at Portuguese sports website Zerozero.
“He didn’t show his happiness with the ball and what Roger said still sticks with me. Vincent had to learn to dance like Roger did at the 1994 World Cup.”
Cunha recalls a shy and discreet player but one who scored 58 goals in 125 games during five seasons with Porto from 2014. In Portugal, Aboubakar was best friends with Algeria international Yacine Brahimi and they would often spend time together and with their families rather than going out with their team-mates.
Milla also told Cunha he expected Aboubakar to play in many tournaments and break his Cameroon records. That was in 2015.
Injury problems hit Aboubakar’s availability while at Porto. His final season in Portugal (2019-20) saw him play nine times in all competitions, scoring twice. When he did play, the striker often looked unable to run and sprint.
A one-year deal and a permanent switch to Turkish club Besiktas followed in 2020. That was Aboubakar’s second spell with the club, having spent the 2016-17 season in Istanbul on loan from Porto.
“His first games, he was very disconnected from the team in what he was doing on the pitch, to the point I remember joking that he must’ve been having hallucinations,” says Bulent Kalafat, a Turkish football pundit and broadcaster.
“He would pass the ball somewhere thinking there would be a team-mate there, and there wouldn’t be anyone even close enough to entertain the idea that he just didn’t execute the pass very well.
“It looked like the loan spell was going to be a disaster but after a few weeks, he scored and assisted in a home win and that was when he came alive.”
In the second half of that season, Aboubakar was instrumental in Besiktas retaining the Super Lig title and salvaging Europa League football from a Champions League group containing Napoli, Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv.
“His second spell, he was used more as a deep-lying forward with his back to goal,” adds Kalafat. “It helped winger Rachid Ghezzal because he had an extra player to link up with in the middle. Also, Cyle Larin, who was brought in as a young striker but only started living up to his promise that season with Aboubakar playing centrally and drawing defenders.”
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Canada international striker Larin scored 19 goals and created six more across 38 league games in his breakthrough season, thanks in part to Aboubakar’s hold-up play.
“We saw two completely different Aboubakars in his two spells in Besiktas — and both were very impressive in different ways,” Kalafat says.
Fitness was a regular concern, however, and Aboubakar went on to miss all bar 45 minutes of the final 11 games.
That finale remains a live controversy, with then-Besiktas manager Sergen Yalcin saying in a recent interview that he felt Aboubakar did not have an injury that should have kept him out for so long. It was suggested Aboubakar missed the games to avoid triggering Besiktas’ option to extend his initial one-year stay in Istanbul. This was denied by the player’s representative.
No improved offer came forward from Besiktas and Aboubakar opted to move to Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia on a free transfer.
“He was popular before that ending. In the games he didn’t play, you could easily tell something was off with the team,” says Kalafat. “He really did make everything click. He was having a phenomenal season and was probably on his way to scoring 20 goals and 10 assists.
“The last 10 weeks were an entirely different story… but it was one of the best deep-lying forward performances I’ve seen in Turkey recently.”
So what about comparing Aboubakar and Salah? One way to do so is via a pair of The Athletic’s pizza charts. These take ratings by smarterscout on various styles and player attributes, scored from zero to 99 and compared to other players operating at a comparative level.
We have opted to look at comparable campaigns at similar ages, with Salah’s 2016-17 Serie A season at Roma up against Aboubakar’s 2017-18 in Portugal.
It is worth noting that both players are boxed into different positions, with Salah as a right winger and Aboubakar as a striker, so their ratings are tied to other players in similar positions. That fits their respective player profiles, too, with Aboubakar showing stronger link-up play and leading his team’s press with his defensive work.
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Salah’s attacking output, however (especially in his contributions towards expected goal totals from shots and ball progression, those blue spikes on the radar), shows how productive the Egyptian is — essentially placing him among the best in the world.
Those charts are unlikely to end any debates but Aboubakar’s performances at this World Cup could help his case.
The striker has been with Al Nassr since June 2021 but the level of football he has been exposed to in that time deserves reappraisal following Saudi Arabia’s remarkable 2-1 comeback victory against Argentina in their opening Group C fixture on Tuesday. Herve Renard’s 26-man squad consists exclusively of those playing in Saudi’s domestic league.
“The assumption has been that Al Nassr and the Saudi league are of a lower quality, and Aboubakar will not be in tip-top shape, but at AFCON, he scored eight goals. He was the top scorer,” said Al-Smith.
“Coming into this tournament, it is the first time he has had anything resembling complete preparation. All the others, he has come in just a few days before.
“This time, the Saudi league went on a break quite early and Vincent was at home in Cameroon for about a month, able to go through rigorous, personal pre-World Cup training. It’s the longest national team camp he has been on since he got his first call-up in 2010.
“So he’s in tune, in form, and in his own words, he is the most ready he has ever been for the national team.”
(Top photo: Visionhaus/Getty Images)
