Football / World Cup USA '94: Germany leave Nigeria unimpressed

(First Edition)

GERMANY are predictable, unexciting and do not strike any fear into Nigeria according to Jo Bonfrere, the Africans' assistant coach. 'Having seen them on television in the first game, we certainly don't have anything to fear from Germany.'

'There was nothing surprising about the Germans. There was no creative football, they just go straight ahead,' he said.

'Their strong point is they work as a team 100 per cent, they work at not conceding goals. They stop others scoring and try to score one themselves. It's not nice football.'

Bonfrere, who coached clubs in the Netherlands and Belgium and is now assistant to fellow Dutchman Clemens Westerhof, said none of the four teams who played on the opening day worried the Nigerians.

Every player and coach in Cameroon's World Cup squad will earn dollars 10,000 dollars (pounds 6,700) for playing in the United States, plus another pounds 5,000 dollars for each win, their government has said. 'If we keep to these figures, and if the team wins the final the government will have to pay out dollars 1.4m,' Augustin Kountchou Kuoumegni, the Communications minister, said.

The minister added that a national campaign to raise finance for the Indomitable Lions' trip had yielded dollars 500,000, a third of which had come from President Paul Biya.