Longest serving captain of C ameroon's senior national team Rigobert Song has declared to Hilltopvoices that late Tataw Eta Stephen "is the true captain" of the indomitable lions. Song was speaking to Hilltopvoices.com in Mbankomo just shortly after the death of the 1990 World Cup heroic performing captain Tataw Eta Stephen was confirmed by the Cameroon Football Federation FECAFOOT. 
Rigobert Song who joined the just departed captain in the lions den for his first world cup to the United States in 1994 remembers late Tataw Eta Stephen as one who was disciplined, calm, animating yet very firm in decision making.
Rigobert Song speaking to Hilltopvoices.com in Mbankomo
"I had a personal relationship with him. I feel very indebted to him. He was an emblematic captain. I had the opportunity to know and meet him during the 1994 World Cup and then I was young. I was with seniors who played with him in 1990. He greatly touched my life... he was modest and very present in the field of play and when I became captain I think I had the same spirit. He gave reason to spectators to want to watch matches. He was reserved yet very efficient. This is a major loss. When he called me captain I told you are the true captian . Man proposes and God disposes. May he rest in peace ." The sad looking Rigobert said.
The late Tataw Eta Stephen
Born on the 31st March 1963 in Ekona-Muyuka Subdivion Fako Division in the South West Region of Cameroon, the 1.8m tall Tataw Eta Stephen began his football carrier with Cammack of Kumba then moved to Tonnerre of Yaounde where he played from 1988 to 1991. He will later move to Olympic Mvolyé to play from 1992 to 1994. He joined the National team in 1988 and led Cameroon to their best World Cup historic performance to the quarter finals in 1990.
Though his trails at English league One side Queens Park Rangers and second tier sides club Brighton & Hove Albion, Tataw Stephen made a historic move to Japan in 1995 where he played for Tosu Futures. He will be Africa's first player to make such a move to a Japanese professional Club. His club will later fold up and any attempts to get a new club would not be fruitful then he retired. He will try to be the head of the National Team of Cameroon in 2018 but will not succeed.
He died in Yaounde on Friday 31st of July 2020 which was being observed in Cameroon as a public holiday due to the Muslim feast of the Sacrifice.
He is the only national team captain to have led Cameroon to two World Cup participations.
Prior to his death, he worked at the National Technical Directorate of the Cameroon Football Federation FECAFOOT.
No public statement has been made on the cause of his death however his close collaborators say he was not too well as he suffered an on and off illness.
The last public activity he participated in that celebrates his emblematic captainship was during the African Nations championship CHAN draws in Yaounde in February 2020.
By Bakah Derick
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