Cameroon’s advancement into the Round of 16 at the Qatar 2022 looks very unlikely as the West/Central African team had to rally to a 3-3 draw with Serbia at the Al Janoub Stadium.
This their ninth match in a row in which they failed to win. But the encounter with Serbia is a shade better than the previous eight in which Camroon lost.
The team had to depend on ageing Vincent Aboubakar who came off the bench to rescue the Indomitable Lions.
He scored a superb goal and offered assist in another. The result keeps both sides’ slim chances alive at the World Cup.
Both teams remarkably scored two quick goals in a space of three minutes. First, Serbia’s Strahinja Pavlovic and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic scored in first-half stoppage time and Aleksandar Mitrovic netted after the break to cancel out Jean-Charles Castelletto’s opener for Cameroon.
Aboubakar was summoned off the bench in the 55th minute and pulled a goal back for Cameroon with a stunning scooped chip over the keeper in the 63rd before teeing up Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting to draw them level three minutes later.
The draw halted a run of eight consecutive World Cup defeats for the African side.
The result left both sides on one point and needing to win their final Group G game to stand a chance of going through to the knockout stages, with Cameroon facing Brazil on Friday when Serbia take on Switzerland.