THE FIRST thing Geremi Njitap might care to do ahead of the African Cup of Nations final this afternoon is to check the crossbar of the goal at the north end of Accra’s Ohene Djan stadium, just to be sure it’s not still vibrating. The Newcastle player struck a 35-yard free kick against it with such force last Thursday that the organisers of this event should consider issuing Geremi with a special premium against damage to equipment. At the previous Nations Cup, a Geremi penalty ripped part of a net from the frame of a goal.

Geremi’s cannon of a right foot was already familiar and he has not been alone for trying the spectacular in Ghana over the past three weeks. Long-range efforts here have been vividly accurate, goals struck at an average of more than three per match, a statistic under which Cameroon will want to quietly bury the four put past them by Egypt in the helter-skelter opening days. “That was a big disappointment because in this kind of competition the first game is normally important,” recalled Geremi. “But since then we showed we have the quality, and we started showing it from the second half against Egypt. It’s just that we have so many young players and we had to motivate them.”

Cameroon’s arrival in the final has been a triumph of remotivation. Evidently, Geremi takes it on himself to do much of the geeing up. “I try,” he smiled. “Some of our players don’t have the experience and didn’t have that determination at the start for these kind of games. We try to put that in their minds. Unfortunately they couldn’t handle the pressure in the first half against Egypt and were frustrated. But now we have found a better way, put on some new players and done a lot better.” It had been quite a resurrection, a Geremi free kick guiding them to a 3-2 win after extra time in the quarter-final against Tunisia, then a defeat of the hosts Ghana in the semi-final. “You see now why we are the Indomitable Lions.”

Geremi counts as the worldliest member of this Cameroon team – with a CV that jumps from Turkey to Real Madrid, Middlesbrough and Chelsea to the captaincy of Newcastle - and will take part in his third Nations Cup final against the Egyptian holders, his intention to restore first the continental renown of Cameroon, second, to remind of their status - they are Africa’s most frequent guests at World Cups – and third, to exorcise the demons from 19 days ago.

Cameroon’s list of alibis for that sluggish start reads as long as it may be familiar: preparations had been haphazard; Cameroon appointed their latest head coach, the 70-year-old German Otto Pfister, barely weeks before the kick-off; players had turned up in dribs and drabs for the preambles, Cameroon not helped by having scheduled those preparations for Kenya, where political violence forced them to relocate to Burkina Faso. Samuel Eto’o only joined the party 40 hours before the kick-off, preferring to squeeze in another match for his club, Barcelona, before assuming his post as chief superstar of the Lions. Others had migrated from their jobs in England, France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East and even the Mexican league. Pfister, who seems to have been working with teams in Africa almost since results were being recorded on papyrus, acknowledged that, yes, ahead of the 4-2 loss against Egypt, it had taken him time to get a handle on his best formation.

Egypt’s journey would be far less perturbed, apart from some fuss about their hotel in Kumasi that saw them switch accommodation twice before the first match. This is a squad with continuity on the coaching staff - Hassan Shehata was in charge when they became Africa champions two years ago - with a strong base from Egypt’s most established and successful club, and, in a nice antidote to the perception that African international teams should mainly be judged according to the volume of the players they export to Europe, Shehata may this afternoon name among his XI only one Europe-based footballer, Anderlecht’s Ahmed Hassan.

He has also done without Egypt’s most recognisable player, the injured Mido. He dropped Middlesbrough’s Mohammed Shawky for the semi-final, when an Egypt containing nine footballers who earn their living domestically met an Ivory Coast team made up of exiles and included seven who will be in action in the last 16 of the European Champions League. The result? Egypt walloped the Ivorians 4-1.

So where have these gifted Egyptians, with their startling pace and honed counter-attacks, been hiding? Certainly from recent World Cups. A tranche of the team has a background at the Cairo club, Al Ahly, who 14 months ago finished third at the club world championship behind Internacional of Brazil and Barcelona of Spain. Al Ahly supply five or six of Shehata’s team, some of them good enough to have had offers from top-division clubs in Europe that were declined in favour of high local salaries and standards of facilities, thanks in part to guaranteed sponsorship from state industries and a support base stretching across the Middle East.

So there are two very different Africas represented in Accra today, one that exports its best talent to all corners, to wherever there is a wealthier football economy than Cameroon’s. The other, Egypt, who have played the most coherent football here, whose players mostly operate at weekends in the same league. Win today, and Egypt seize a record sixth Nations Cup; lose and Cameroon will catch them as Africa’s most decorated champions and complete the month’s most striking turnaround.

African Cup of Nations final: how they line up

EGYPT (probable)

Essam al-Hadary (Al-Ahly, Egypt), Shady Mohamed (Al-Ahly, Egypt), Ahmed Fathi (Al-Ahly, Egypt), Hani Said (Ismailia, Egypt), Wael Gomaa (Al-Siliya, Qatar), Sayed Moawad (Ismailia, Egypt), Hosni Abd Rabou (Ismailia, Egypt), Mohamed Aboutrai-ka (Al-Ahly, Egypt), Ahmed Hassan (An-derlecht, Belgium), Emad Moteab (Al-Ahly, Egypt), Amr Zaki (Zamalek, Egypt)

CAMEROON (probable)

Carlos Idriss Kameni (Espanyol, Spain), Geremi (Newcastle), Rigobert Song (Galatasaray, Turkey), Bill Tchato (Qatar Sport, Qatar), Timothee Atouba (Hamburg, Germany), Alexandre Song, inset (Arsenal), Achille Emana (Tou-louse, France), Stephane Mbia (Rennes, France), Samuel Eto’o (Barcelona, Spain), Mohamadou Idrissou (Duisberg, Germany), Joseph Desire Job (Nice, France)

TV match

Egypt v Cameroon

Today, British Eurosport & BBC2 4.30pm, kick-off 5pm

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