Cameroon-born NBA star Joel Embiid, who obtained French and American citizenship in 2022, will represent the United States at the Paris Olympics. In Yaoundé, in his training club, his former coaches say they are proud of his career but regret not seeing him defend the colors of his native country on the international stage.
Published on: 06/23/2024 – 5:30 p.m.
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The crumbling pitch of this Yaoundé college contrasts with the perfect NBA floors: this is where it all began for its most famous former student, Joel Embiid, who has become a global basketball star and who will participate in the Paris Olympic Games with United States.
The staff of the establishment gladly presents to the curious the clay court, the pole and the iron arch which rocked the sporting education of the prodigy and stood the test of time. In the general supervisor’s office, in a small photo hanging on the wall, the slender silhouette of the NBA player can be seen, who already surpassed his college classmates before his departure from Cameroon.
It was in 2010. “ He already towered over everyone with his size. It was the year after that he left », recalls Emmanuel Ambomo, former supervisor of the 30-year-old basketball player who plays, at a height of 2.13 meters, as a pivot for the Philadelphia 76ers. In this college in Damascus, a wealthy district of Yaoundé, we pride ourselves on having contributed to the education of the giant. “ He had to be held », remembers Thierry Mepoui, also the player’s supervisor at the time.
« When we see that he is no longer Cameroonian, it bothers us »
So to channel himself, Joel Embiid took up sport but especially football and volleyball, says Mr. Mepoui, before being pushed by his uncle to the Kossengwe Basketball Academy, the best training center in Cameroon at the time. “ My pride is that there is a basketball genius who listened to us. He certainly had the talent, but here he acquired the discipline », assures the one who dreams of seeing his foal once again tread the school grounds.
In his club in Yaoundé, the young Embiid quickly stood out thanks to his potential. And just a few months after he started playing, the teenager flew to South Africa for a North American championship summer camp, called “NBA Without Border”. This is the first step in the young Cameroonian’s rise abroad.
But in Damascus, more than a decade later, pride mixes with frustration to see the country’s child representing another nation at the Paris Olympic Games. “ When we see that he is no longer Cameroonian, it bothers us », laments Roger Dassi, who trained Joel Embiid in his childhood. The NBA player acquired French and American nationality, thus renouncing his Cameroonian passport.
Embiid « would have had more impact playing for Cameroon »
« We need them to develop basketball in Cameroon, that’s why we train them. Will all our children become Americans? ? », exclaims Roger Dassi. On the sidelines of a basketball competition at the Yaoundé Sports Palace, Yves Tsala, former vice-president of Embiid’s training club, tempers.
For him, ” the main message that its success conveys » is that she “ allows all the young people who play here to tell themselves that they can do it “. However, he believes that Embiid “ would have had more impact playing for Cameroon ». « It would not have had the same result as with the United States on a sporting level “, he concedes, but thanks to him the national team could have “change status » and Embiid would have “completely inscribed in the legend » in his native country, says Yves Tsala. “ Next to him, there is his entourage, there are his agents, there is his club which invests enormously. All these people need to be reassured about where he’s going. Since Cameroon was complicated, he considered other possibilities. »
For his part, Claude Bessim Bene, basketball coach and referee in Yaoundé, has also made up his mind. “We would have liked him to play for Cameroon, it would have made a good image for our country. But we are happy to know that a worthy son of the country represents Cameroonian and African basketball, he is like an ambassador », he concludes.
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