At 21, Georges Mandjeck is one of the newest additions to the Cameroon squad, and also one of the country’s most promising midfielders. Like Samuel Eto’o, Carlos Kameni and Stephane Mbia, he came through the Kadji Sports Academy in the suburbs of Douala, before joining Stuttgart in 2007.

Mandjeck has yet to gain a foothold at the Bundesliga side, in spite of the help and guidance of Ivorian team-mate Arthur Boka. "He’s like a brother to me,” says Mandjeck. “He took me under his wing and really helped me to adapt to Germany". For the past two seasons, he has played second-division football on loan to Kaiserslautern, where he has gradually begun to live up to the great potential he showed as a youth player.

In a Cameroon shirt, Mandjeck played two matches in the 2008 Men’s Olympic Football Tournament, finding the back of the net against Korea Republic before being sent off against Italy. In January, he got his first taste of a tournament with the senior team at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, playing at right back in the first round against Tunisia, then in midfield in the quarter-final against Egypt.