The African Cup of Nations is going to get a reputation for being a "drawn" out affair. A terrible attempt at a joke, I know. But it does "draw" a bit of a picture of the opening six matches of the Afcon. I wish I could watch it but I've been pretty "tied" up. Just like most of the teams in Gabon. There have been four draws out of those 6 matches. DR Congo went wild today and won 1-0 against Morocco. Ivory Coast and Togo kept the draw junkies happy by not scoring any goals against each other.
These major tournaments always have surprise results, happy stories and a couple of odd stories. The best one in the latter category is happening in Liverpool. Joel Matip was selected by Cameroon in the preliminary squad but decided he didn't want to play for the team. Liverpool were happy to not lose another player for a month. But, hold on Houston, we may have a problem. Fifa rules state that a player who was selected to play for his national team cannot play for his club while the period of international duty is active, plus another five days. So even though Matip does not want to play for Cameroon, he cannot play for Liverpool unless Cameroon officially release him. If Cameroon reach the final, Matip will be twiddling his thumbs until February 11th.
It'll be interesting to see how far Cameroon go with this. They have the power over his Liverpool career. Will they make him sit out, out of spite?
This is not the first time Matip has done this. He decided to not play in the 2010 Afcon after being selected. At that time he was still unsure as to what country he wanted to represent. He was born in Germany to a German mother and Cameroonian father. Later in 2010 he decided to play for Cameroon and played for them at the 2010 World Cup.
Liverpool blame Fifa for the confusion. They say Matip retired from international duty with Cameroon in 2015 and hasn't played since. Last season he played for his club at the time, Schalke, 4 days, not 5, after Cameroon played a World Cup qualifier. No action was taken. Even though Cameroon named him in their provisional squad, he wasn't in their final squad. Yet Fifa will not make a ruling despite Liverpool's request.
So it looks as though in order for Matip to play with Liverpool he has to be officially told he is not part of a squad that he wasn't selected for, but provisionally selected to be part of even though he had asked to never be selected again. Are Cameroon enjoying this?
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