Joël Tagueu, the Cameroonian who comes back from afar

Text by: David Kalfa Follow

3 min

Cameroonian Joël Tagueu has come back from afar in every sense of the word. From Brazil, first of all, which he left behind, after almost a decade spent in the country of Pelé, to commit definitively to the Maritimo (Portugal) on August 7, 2020. And figuratively speaking, this striker of 26 years old having had to give up his first African Cup of Nations (CAN 2019) because of a heart anomaly.

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“  Very happy to continue with green-red on the chest until 2022 !  »Joël Tagueu, 26-year-old striker, can smile. This August 7, 2020, he has just made a definitive commitment with the Portuguese first division club, Maritimo. Until now it had evolved in the form of a loan, especially during the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 seasons. But in the meantime, the career of the “Indomitable Lion” has come to a halt.

Cardiac abnormality

A year ago, while the interested party was preparing to experience his first African Cup of Nations with Cameroon, the verdict had fallen: “  The doctor of the Indomitable Lions detected in the striker Joël Tagueu, one of the 23 of the Clarence Seedorf workforce for CAN 2019, a coronary artery implantation anomaly, with a proven risk of sudden death.  "

The native of Nkongsamba (western Cameroon) was therefore excluded from the final list for the tournament. A heartbreak, at the time. "  I feel sad and at the same time happy ," he explained at the microphone of the Cameroonian Federation. Sad because I will not be able to participate in the African Cup of Nations, which for me was a dream. But I was found to have an abnormality in the coronary arteries. […] And happy because this anomaly has been detected. If it had not been detected and I had played in the CAN, maybe something would have happened to me. You never know  ”...

In a country still traumatized by the death on a football field of Marc-Vivien Foé, we do not joke with this kind of threats. The good news was that the problem in question was curable. Joël Tagueu therefore had the operation successfully, a few days later, before marrying the one who had shared his life for several years.

Samuel Eto'o from Brazil

It is in Brazil that Joël Tagueu was followed and treated medically. No wonder that. The Cameroonian has spent most of his career there. He landed in the land of Pelé in 2009, where he notably wore the shirts of Cruzeiro, Santos and Botafogo. Legendary clubs where he has won several evocative nicknames: "the cruel", the "Cameroonian matador" or even "Eto'o" ...

Joël Tagueu is thus one of the very rare Africans to have played in the Brazilian elite, and this well before the Ivorian Salomon Kalou. Loaned several times by Cruzeiro, since 2015, the striker aspired to return to Europe, where he ultimately spent little time. And it is therefore on the big island of Madeira that he will try to resume the thread of his atypical career. "  I am a striker and I hope to always do my best to be among the best strikers in Portuguese football ," he told Maritimo television. Collectively, I want to help the team achieve its goals and that means securing the classification in order to qualify for European competitions  ”. And, why not, convince the new coach of the "Indomitable Lions", the Portuguese Toni Conceição, to give him a chance, in view of the next CAN, which will take place in January 2022 in Cameroon ...

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