The Cameroonians were out and then they were back. The veteran Vincent Aboubakar stepped in, in the 10the minute of the second half, and beat the well-laid offside trap to score one and create another as Serbia was left shaken by this sudden intensity to settle for a 3-3 draw at the Al Janoub Stadium.
Aboubakar raced past an absent opposition defence and audaciously chipped it over ‘keeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic in the 63rd minute; a stray Serbian foot on the far left keeping him onside, the VAR decided. Two minutes 32 seconds later, he was ready to inflict more damage, as he turned and ran beyond a flat-footed backline to move the ball to Eric Choupo-Moting, who had no problems hitting the target for his first goal in the quadrennial event. The African lions were hunting in pack like the dogs of the wild.
It became a seesaw affair from then on as both sides pressed for a win with plenty of gaps opening in the back. Stefan Savic’s pause before his shot in the 77th minute helped goalkeeper Devis Epassy to step out and smother it wide.
Cameroon, too, tried but could not find a winner.
The end of the first half was equally crazy as Serbia scored twice in stoppage time to sneak ahead and added a third promptly after the restart. Dusan Tadic’s teasing freekick created the first, as Strahinja Pavlovic climbed to the top and headed in the equaliser. Two minutes later, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, one of the best box-to-box midfielders in Europe, made it 2-1 as his left footer from the top of the box bounced in front of a diving Epassy, giving him no chance to get a hand to it.
The third in the 53rd minute picked more holes than a Swiss cheese in the Cameroonian defence, as the Serbian players had four touches in the opposite box before Aleksandar Mitrovic placed it past the keeper to end the agony.
The lead came for Cameroon from a corner in the 29th minute as Jean-Charles Castelletto was left unmarked on the far post to casually nudge in the goal.
The game, though, had a lot of drama left and both teams were happy to end the day with their World Cup hopes still alive.
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