African selections, Brazil's pet peeves

Yesterday, Senegal easily got rid of Brazil, who conceded 4 goals. A feat previously achieved by Nigeria, Cameroon and Morocco.

Never has an African team scored so many goals against Brazil. This Tuesday evening, the Teranga Lions defeated the Seleção. If Lucas Paquetá opened the scoring for Brazil and we thought the Senegalese had a bad start, they finally offered a festival of goals. Final score: 4 goals to 2 for Senegal. Habib Diallo, Sadio Mané twice and Marquinhos against his camp allowed the Teranga Lions to offer themselves a prestigious victory during this friendly match which took place at the José Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon.

But Senegal is far from being the first African nation to afford Brazil. Morocco also had, in a friendly match last March, disposed of the Seleção. The only difference: the match was played in Tangier, and Boufal and Sabiri were able to count on an audience committed to their cause. One could say that the Brazilians are letting their friendlies slip away, especially at the end of the season. But it is clear that the Seleção has, above all, more and more difficult to beat the African selections, even if Guinea was beaten last week by Brazil.

It was finally Cameroon who had achieved a real feat, paving the way for African selections: the Indomitable Lions were the first African players to offer themselves Brazil. In official competition, moreover. Cameroon indeed beat Seleção 1 to 0 during the group stage of the last World Cup in Qatar. Vincent Aboubakar, the scorer, and his teammates have thus made history. But before them, other Cameroonians have achieved the same feat, in perhaps less prestigious competitions.

In 2000, during the quarter-finals of the Sydney Olympics, the Indomitable Lions — including Samuel Eto'o, Patrick Mboma and Modeste M'bami — beat a fine team from Brazil, which included Ronaldinho in its ranks, between other stars. Four years earlier, in 1996, Nigeria also beat Brazil, 4-3, at the Olympics. Then in 2003, during the Confederations Cup, Eto'o scored again against Brazil, and the Indomitable Lions won 1-0.

With the Senegalese victory yesterday, the African teams are definitely the pet peeves of Brazil. Already before, the Seleção were regularly held in check - against Nigeria in 2019 and against Senegal the same year, with scores of 1-1. But we now see more and more continental selections beating a once untouchable Brazil.