Cameroon vs Algeria: Belmadi — Sleepless Over State Of Japoma Pitch

Algeria’s Djamel Belmadi has made yet another outing on the Japoma stadium, which is set to host the first of two legs pitting Cameroon against Algeria in the World Cup qualifiers.

The gaffer aired in a presser on January 15, that the Japoma stadium isn’t the worse possible pitch, but its not just good enough for top matches like the WC qualifiers and AFCON.

‘We said it was hot and humid. Everybody knows it. The pitch is not catastrophic, the problem is playing at 2 p.m under the scotching sun.

‘The pitch is very dry. It benefits teams who want to defend because the game is less fluid. I saw the Côte d’Ivoire match at 8 p.m., it was well watered and slick,’ said the winner of the 2019 edition AFCON.

‘A team that attacks spends more energy than a defending team. We don’t attack by jogging or trotting, we run at high intensity. (…) It makes things difficult, that’s a fact,’ Belmadi ended.

Djamel Belmadi has been on the case of the Olembe patch since the AFCON 2021 days. Algeria lost against Cote D’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, and drew against Sierra Leone on group E.

Cameroon has however made her venue known already, and Belmadi and his team will just need to adapt to the turf on March 25.