Cameroon’s Famous World Cup Captain, Tawtaw, Dies At 57

By: Ikeddy Isiguzo

Stephen Tataw Eta,a Cameroonian football right-back, who captained the Cameroon national team at the 1990 and 1994 FIFA World Cup, passed on Friday 31 July 2020, aged 57 at his home in Yaoundé. He had been ill for some time.

His cousin, Emmanuel Tawtaw, a top Cameroonian journalist confirmed his death, to AllNews Nigeria. 

Famous for playing every minute as he led the Indomitable Lions to the quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy, bearded Tawtaw led the run that included wins over Argentina, Romania, and Colombia. Cameroon became the first African side to reach the last eight. Cameroon were eventually beaten 3-2 in extra-time by England at the quarter-finals. 

Four years after he became a villain.  Tawtaw led Cameroon to its worst World Cup ever with resounding defeats from the campaign in the USA - a 6-1 Russian thrashing, where Roger Milla looked comic celebrating Cameroon’s goal of the competition, and a 3-0 loss to Brazil. Milla, at 42 then remains the oldest World Cup scorer, Colombian goalkeeper Faryd Mondragón broken his other record of the oldest player at the World Cup in 2014, a record Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary, 45, claimed at the 2018 World Cup. 

While Cameroon was on the decline Nigeria was in her first World Cup and would make a huge impression. The 1994 World Cup remains Nigeria best World Cup outing. Cameroun was knocked out in the first round. 

Tawtaw’s professional careers were with 1988–1991 Tonnerre Yaoundé (1988-1991), Olympic Mvolyé (1992-1994), Tosu Futures (Japan), 1995-1996, winning the Cameroon Cup in 1989, 1991 and 1992, and the Africa Cup of Nations in 1988, in that bitter final with Nigeria in Casablanca, Morocco. 

He played with Cammack of Kumba before joining Tonnerre of Yaoundé Tonnerre Yaounde from 1988 to 1991, and for Olympic Mvolyé from 1992 to 1994. Although Tonnerre were one of Cameroon's leading clubs, they lacked basic facilities, playing on a baked earth pitch in a stadium with no showers or dressing rooms. In 1991 Tataw was reported to earn £60-per-week, with another £100-per-week from a sinecure with Cameroon Radio Television. 

In October 1990, Tataw joined English Football League First Division club Queens Park Rangers on trial. It was reported that he was "bemused" by the experience: "The manager, I forget his name [Don Howe], said I was good – excellent – but he was full up. I was a right-back and he did not need one. Why did he not tell me this before I came? Ask him. I was excellent." The following month he was reported to be on trial with Football League Second Division club Brighton & Hove Albion. 

In Simon Kuper's Football Against the Enemy, Tataw is described playing for second tier Olympic Mvolyé. He was dragged from his car and beaten up by four armed men days before the 1992 Cameroonian Cup final against Diamant Yaoundé. He rebounded to captain his club in the match and played well, winning the penalty kick from which teammate Bertin Ebwellé struck the only goal. 

In 1995, he joined Tosu Futures of Japan. He became the first African footballer to play for a professional Japanese club. While he was in Japan, he tried to guide his club to the J-League, the top division. But in 1997, Tosu Futures folded due to the withdrawal of its main sponsor. He hoped to play for Sagan Tosu, the new club in the city, but he did not agree terms and retired. 

In April 2018, he was one of 77 applicants for the vacant job of Cameroon national team coach. 

Nigerians would remember Tawtaw for his roles in the duels between Nigeria and Cameroon that cost the Super Eagles the Nations Cup in 1988 (the final in Casablanca, Morocco). In 1992, at the edition in Senegal, Nigeria extracted a partial revenge when the Super Eagles beat Tawtaw’s Cameroon 2-1 in the third place match. 

Cameroon’s famous 1990 World Cup appearance was at the expense of Nigeria, sealed by a 1-0 loss, in Yaoundé, only two weeks after Sam Okwaraji had died playing for Nigeria in another leg of the qualifiers against Angola in Lagos.  

He was easily one of the best Cameroonian players who exhibited the indomitable traits of the Lions of Cameroon. Africa has lost a great player who led the continent’s game to a new epoch. 

May the Almighty grant him rest.