{"id":58733,"date":"2026-08-15T13:29:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/michaely-bihina-the-cameroon-goalkeeper-making-waves-at-wafcon-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T13:29:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:29:49","slug":"michaely-bihina-the-cameroon-goalkeeper-making-waves-at-wafcon-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/michaely-bihina-the-cameroon-goalkeeper-making-waves-at-wafcon-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Michaely Bihina: The Cameroon goalkeeper making waves at Wafcon 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">One name has become the toast of Cameroon following her heroics at the 2026 Women&#8217;s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon).<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Some in the Central African nation are already calling for a statue to built in honour of Michaely Bihina after her incredible performances which have helped the Indomitable Lionesses return to the final for the first time since 2016.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The young goalkeeper has been one of the stars of the tournament with player-of-the-match performances against Nigeria in the quarter-finals and hosts Morocco in the last four.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m very happy and full of emotions because for our generation it&#8217;s the first time to play the final,&#8221; she told the BBC World Service after saving four penalties, one in extra time and three in the subsequent shootout, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/ckg3pzne52xo\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">Wednesday&#8217;s semi-final win over the Moroccans.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We thank all the people who support us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 22-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/cg4d0qd33gwo\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">made nine saves against Nigeria,<\/a> setting the record for the most in a single match at the finals as Cameroon dethroned the defending champions &#8211; a victory which also booked their place at the 2027 Fifa Women&#8217;s World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bihina described it as &#8220;a great day for Cameroonian football&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Playing in my first Wafcon and being able to beat Nigeria and qualify for the World Cup is historic,&#8221; she told the Confederation of African Football (Caf).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I am so excited and happy that as a team we have achieved this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We had an objective &#8211; to change the history of our national team against Nigeria.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cameroon have previously lost three Wafcon finals &#8211; all against Nigeria (2004, 2014 and 2016) &#8211; but will now face debutants Malawi for the continental crown on Sunday (19:00 GMT).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bihina has been at the heart of the Indomitable Lionesses&#8217; challenge, with three clean sheets in five matches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/c7vgylpgmz7o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One name has become the toast of Cameroon following her heroics at the 2026 Women&#8217;s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon). Some in the Central African nation are already calling for a statue to built in honour of Michaely Bihina after her incredible performances which have helped the Indomitable Lionesses return to the final for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58735,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58733\/revisions\/58735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}