The Lion is King!

By Phillip Corryand ReutersCameroon 0 (3)Senegal 0 (2)Cameroon won the African Nations Cup dramatically last night.The Indomitable Lions beat Senegal 3-2 on penalties after the match finished 0-0 after extra-time in the final at the March 26 Stadium. The Lions, who dominated the dramatic final but always missed scoring when it looked so easy, struck the penalties through Sam Patrick Suffo, Lauren Mayer and Geremi Njitap while Pierre Wome and Rigobert Song missed their chances.The Lions ended the tournament without conceding a goal.Cameroon entered the final eager to demonstrate their superiority over a team they clearly regard as upstarts.Cameroon felt Senegal have been hogging the spotlight at the tournament without doing anything to deserve it. The Senegalese, who in June will play at the World Cup for the first time, surprisingly reached the final with a 2-1 extra-time win over Nigeria.Their flair and physical strength — in particular El Hadjii Ousseynou Diouf in attack — have been among the talking points of the competition but the Indomitable Lions remained unimpressed. “I think all of Cameroon wanted to play against Senegal,” said Cameroon midfielder Laurent Etame Mayer. “It’s not that we have a big rivalry, it’s that people have been talking all the time about Senegal, how they are going to play France at the World Cup etc etc, when in fact the champions of Africa are Cameroon.List of previous hostsand winners1957 (Sudan Egypt 1959 (Egypt) Egypt 1962 (Ethiopia) Ethiopia 1963 (Ghana) Ghana 1965 (Tunisia) Ghana 1968 (Ethiopia) DRC1970 (Sudan) Sudan 1972 (Cameroon) Congo 1974 (Egypt) Zaire 1976 (Ethiopia) Morocco 1978 (Ghana) Ghana 1980 (Nigeria) Nigeria 1982 (Libya) Ghana 1984 (I. Coast) Cameroon 1986 (Egypt) Egypt 1988 (Morocco) Cameroon 1990 (Algeria) Algeria 1992 (Senegal)Cote d’Ivoire 1994 (Tunisia) Nigeria 1996 (South Africa)S.Africa 1998 (Burkina Faso)Egypt 2000 (Nig-Gha) Cameroon 2002 (Mali) Cameroon.