Explosive interview: Brys tears Eto’o into shreds!.

In the interview, the Belgian tactician also accused Eto’o Fils of having pocketed his predecessor, Rigobert Song and also demonstrating an overbearing attitude towards the players, especially in the dressing room. 

In the interview granted Belgian media, dhnet.be, Brys rubbished Eto’o's management of Cameroon football. He went ahead to say that aside succeeding as a footballer, anything else Eto’o does is a total failure. Excerpts 

You won the Belgian Cup with Germinal Beerschot in 2005 and the Goethals Trophy as coach of OHL in 2021, but it took that clash with Eto’o before you became world-famous?

(Laugh. It was just a simple altercation. Above all, I hope that FECAFOOT, the Cameroon Football Federation of which Eto’o is president, will stop putting obstacles in my way. 

It bothers me enormously because, unfortunately, they’re doing everything they can to destabilise us and increase our chances of losing. How can you be against your own country?

Let’s go back first to that scene on May 28, 2024, that caused such a buzz. Can you tell us what exactly happened?

FECAFOOT summoned us to their offices for the umpteenth time, as usual, without telling us what was on the agenda. 

Given the aggression and threats against me on social networks, the Minister for Sport asked two of his staff to accompany us. 

Eto’o arrived a long way late and saw me but initially ignored me, before beckoning me quite aggressively to join him. 

I don’t like being told what to do, and especially not when someone doesn’t say hello. So, I gave him the wind, and that's when the video started. 

He felt humiliated because I’d given him back to him by being as contemptuous as he was, so he started shouting and threatening me. 

Before that, he had also been discourteous and outrageous towards the Sports Minister’s adviser.

One would have thought that you would retaliate but you remained very calm?

I had three options: either to run away or I could fight, but then I’d have been sacked. Or I could respond to his aggressiveness by confronting him with something he didn’t like at all. 

When he told me he’d been a coach, I retorted: I read that before: ‘Yes, in Turkey (at Antalyaspor in 2015). But only for three weeks. Then he told me I would be sacked. I replied: ‘That’s the fourth time you’ve said that, but you don’t have the power to fire me. That’s the responsibility of the Minister of Sports.

Weren’t you scared? We can see that your assistant, Joachim Mununga, was ready to intervene?

Yes, Joachim had approached us. He’s a good guy (laughs). But why should I have been afraid? If he had struck, I would have reacted energetically. 

If he’d threatened my daughter or my son, I don't know if I’d have kept my cool. 

My dad always taught me not to back down and to take it if you have to. I took his advice. When my wife saw the pictures, she asked me what it all meant. But in the meantime, she knows me.

We understand that two days after the incident, Eto’o apologised?

In a slimy way, at a press conference broadcast on TV. He wanted to hug me. But two days later, it was the same thing all over again.

He has a social networking team around him. But 80% of the information they relay is wrong! It’s pure fiction, but people believe it. I’ve supposedly already been fired 37 times. 

Given his background as a footballer and his origins, he has the support of the working classes. He’s very powerful, even if he only succeeded as a footballer. In other areas, he has failed: as a coach, as an entrepreneur and visibly as a leader, when I see his way of doing things at FECAFOOT. 

I’m 62, an age when you tell people the truth, to help them evolve. My predecessor, Rigobert Song, was a weathervane and had nothing to say. 

Eto’o would come into the dressing room before the match and at rest and he would change the team from A to Z. The players felt like he was a tyrant. The players felt bullied, it was a total farce. 

In an environment like that, you couldn’t expect Cameroon to put in the performances expected of them.

Let’s talk about the day before your first match, the 4-1 win over Cape Verde; you had no balls, no equipment and decided to start your camping with a walk?

Yes, it was. It was done on purpose. So, I told my players that training had been replaced by a walk. I wanted to show that it wasn’t going to be like that. But that wasn’t all. 

Before our match in Angola, there were supposedly no rooms in the hotel for the coaches, only for the players and managers. I refused to go anywhere else and we were given a room. 

The night before the match, I received an email at 1.30 a.m and 5.40 a.m saying that the players’ passports and the names of the team had to be provided to a FIFA Commissioner who was staying an hour and a half away. 

At 7 a.m, I hired a car to go and give him everything myself. I was afraid that FECAFOOT would make changes to my team. And then another incident: the members of my staff were not accredited for the match. 

So, Andre Onana, the Manchester United goalkeeper, had to warm up by himself, without a goalkeeping coach! Unheard of. That’s what Samuel Eto'o, great footballer that he was, did as President of his federation.

How do you see your future collaboration with Eto’o?

The ball is in his court. If he wants cordial and peaceful relations, I’ll take it. If he wants unfriendly and brutal relations, they will remain that way until I finish my mission, which is to rebuild a winning Cameroon team, the kind that is loved the world over. 

Some people have to know how to turn the page and let the younger generations write theirs.

We thought you were going to Nigeria, which wanted you in the middle of the crisis with Eto'o Fils?

It would have been too easy to run away for a higher salary.

Are you aware that your current salary has appeared in the newspapers?

Not only was the amount not right (editor’s note: €420,000 gross per year), but thanks to a clause in my contract, I could also have resigned and still received my full salary if it leaked to the newspapers. 

I thought about doing that (laughs). But in the end, I didn’t use it. I didn’t want to leave my wonderful group of players. What an atmosphere!

For example: in Europe, the hazing of a new player lasts 30 seconds, the time it takes to sing a few tunes. In Cameroon, it takes 20 to 30 minutes. It’s a real spectacle, a kind of play.

The stars of the show include United’s Onana, as well as Choupo-Moting and players from Olympique Marseille, Brentford, Brighton and Napoli. The presence of Didier Lamkel Ze in the squad came as a surprise.

Didier has been exemplary. He’s the player who calls me the most. He received an offer from a D2 club in Russia and Turkey and he asked my opinion. I told him it would be better to play in D1. 

During the 4-1 win over Cape Verde, he didn’t get on the ball very well. 

I explained to him that he had to be as free-thinking on the pitch as he was off it, that he had to be daring! He almost scored the winning goal in Angola (1-1).

Jackson Tchatchoua, ex-Carolo of Verona, played the full 90 minutes in each of the matches.

In the first match, he was even the best player on the pitch. I told him so five times, just to tease him (laughs). He has an excellent mentality, four lungs and good feet. Initially, he wasn’t my first choice, but he convinced me in training. I haven’t looked back.

What’s life like in Yaounde?

I love Yaounde. I have a personal driver and a bodyguard, who are available from 5.30 a.m. We drive around with a siren and all four indicators on. 

Sometimes my driver has to practically push other cars coming in the opposite direction out of the way just to get through. 

At first, I had motorcyclists at my disposal, but I thought that was a bit excessive. Cameroonians love me so much that I’m systematically overwhelmed by fans. 

So, I’ve learnt not to go to restaurants in town any more, because I spend more time signing autographs and being filmed than eating. And even though I try to camouflage myself, it's not easy to go unnoticed (laughs).’

Weren’t you better off in Belgium?

No. Either I stopped coaching or I became a federal coach. I was approached by several African countries. But I chose Cameroon, a mythical footballing country. 

I was one of 46 candidates for the post of coach, a selection that was steered in a very professional manner by the Ministry of Sport. Despite everything that’s happened, I haven't looked back yet.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3203 of Monday August 19, 2024