Charles Itandje: The silver lining of a disastrous Cameroon World Cup campaign

Date: 23rd June 2014 at 10:27am
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In a sea of despair, inter-team squabbling and administrative conflicts stands Charles Itandje, a fighter and saviour, of sorts. The Cameroon goalkeeper along with his teammates has had a World Cup to forget, as consecutive losses to Mexico and Croatia meaning that the African nation are already mathematically out of the tournament.

That said, Itandje can take great pride from the fact that along with Chile’s Claudio Bravo and Mathew Ryan of Australia (also on an early plane home) jointly holds top position for most number of saves made, currently on nine.

However, the rise to stardom for the 31-year-old hasn’t been quite as accommodating as his current plaudits. Born in Paris, Itandje started his professional career with Lens, where he made more than 150 appearances from 2001 to 2007, before surprisingly taking the decision to join Premier League side Liverpool as back-up to first-choice Pepe Reina.

“At Liverpool there is a very good keeper who has been there three years and I am clearly going to be number two,” admitted the Cameroon goalkeeper on signing. “But there are 60 matches in a season and it is planned that I will play the League Cup and FA Cup.”

Unfortunately for Itandje, despite those fleeting performances, he couldn’t transform this cherubic optimism into establishing a claim for his place in the starting line-up.

Also the former Lens player was involved in a huge controversy during his time at Anfield, when in April 2009 he was caught behaving inappropriately at the memorial service for the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.

His actions, consequently led to wide spread condemnation from those connected with the club and he was suspended for 14 days, eventually making an official apology after joining Atromitos, after it was made clear there was no longer a future anymore at Anfield.

When making his move onto the international arena success was far more tangible and long lasting, but did not arrive without difficulties and tough choices, initially trying his best to crack into the French national team while at Lens, however, was left frustrated as the opportunities were minimal and sporadic.

Since his parents were of Cameroonian descent, he finally opted to play for the African nation after previous first-choice goalkeeper Carlos Kameni was out of favour at Malaga, and the opportunity to represent the Indomitable Lions came knocking on Itandje’s door.

The PAOK man, in turn, performed excellently in the qualifiers, projecting maturity and cool-headedness that eventually made his selection for the World Cup just a formality.

With a lot expected of him in Brazil, there is a pervasive feeling that Itandje has underachieved, unable to replicate his best form, particularly against Croatia, where he made two grave errors that cost his side deeply and were morally draining.

Firstly, after playing the ball directly to the feet of Ivan Perisic he was beaten at his near post by a low driven effort after the Croatian immediately took advantage of the mistake, then he weakly parried away a shot from Eduardo straight to Mario Mandzukic, who notched up his second of the night.

Even despite such glitches, I feel Itandje is highly under-rated and made some crucial saves despite the 1-0 loss to Mexico in their opening game, and for a player who decided to avoid the major European leagues to play in Turkey is a fantastic talent.

What the 31-year-old currently lacks in consistency at the highest level can, by any means, be mastered then we will soon be witnessing one of the smallest-and-greatest goalkeepers of the modern era.

 

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