Taming Cameroon's Football Lions

DW-WORLD: Winfried Schäfer, did you hesitate at all upon getting the offer to coach Cameroon?

Winfried Schäfer: No. You don't get the chance to go to the World Cup every day. The people were also really nice to me. I looked at a some of videos of the team and checked out the players playing in Europe. I quickly realized that I could do something with the boys, something we proved at the Africa Cup.

Had you already once been in Africa?

I only had a stopover once in Dakar. Still, I was well-prepared for Cameroon. I talked to former German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel who referred me to Harald Gans, the former German Ambassador to Cameroon who had also trained a football team there. I knew what I was in for.

Were you also prepared for the - from a European perspective - somewhat bizarre work conditions? Photos of you and your players flying to the Africa Cup in the cargo netting inside a military plane went around the world.

I know that in Africa some things are just the way they are. But much has already improved.

The enthusiasm following your victory was also much more impressive ...

There is, of course, football excitement here in Germany, but you can't compare it. Football in Cameroon is the center of life. If I or the team appear somewhere, people go crazy, whether at a press conference, at the hotel or at practice. There are sometimes 60,000 people - at practice.

Does the fact that Cameroon was once a German colony influence the way you do your job at all?

I haven't heard it myself, but some have said that there were people who were against a German coach. That was a definite risk for the Sports Minister. If we had lost early in the Africa Cup then the question would be: Why did we get a German?

Since 1990, the theory has always been that the future of football is black. Why is it then that the greatest success by a black team has so far only been Cameroon's trip to the World Cup quarterfinals in 1990?

It's not enough just to play football at a World Cup. You need to have excellent medical support as well. African teams have always had a problem with this. There is also the lack of tournament experience that teams like Germany traditionally live off of. You simply need to play tournaments. We showed, with the Africa Cup, that we have begun to understand that. There have, of course, also been a lot of tactical failures. You saw that in the 1990 World Cup, in the quarterfinal against England. Cameroon didn't want to win 2-0, they wanted to win 6-0 and always ran up the field. If Cameroon had been a bit more clever they would have been Germany's semifinal opponent. They need cool heads to compliment their enthusiastic play.

When will an African team become world champion?

2002 is too ambitious, maybe 2006.

With Winfried Schäfer as the coach?

We'll have to see.