Every Monday, FIFA spotlights a World Cup record. Two of the most implausible of call-ups enabled two Cameroonians to set one at USA 1994.

Twins, the 1988 Hollywood blockbuster, featured the oddest double act in cinematic history. It comprised Vincent, a pudgy, 4ft 10ins crook played by Danny DeVito, and Julius, a happy-go-lucky hulk played by former Mr. Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger. Its final scene was as emotional as it was euphoric. The brothers finally found their long-pursued mother.

That same year, the final scene of a script written 13,000-plus kilometres away also saw tears and cheers. Its solitary star was a man who, like Schwarzenegger, once dreamed of competing in the Olympics. Roger Milla, whose teenage target was to become a gold-medallist in the high jump, was ending one of Africa’s greatest-ever football careers. The hip-wiggling forward had become the first Cameroonian to be named African Footballer of the Year. His 1981 brace had upset Morocco and qualified the Indomitable Lions for a first World Cup. He was retiring as his nation’s all-time leading marksman, on 38 goals from 61 outings, and fresh from propelling them to a second AFCON crown in three editions. His extravagant send-off, marketed as ‘Roger Milla Jubilee’, featured local legends such as Joseph-Antoine Bell and Francois Omam-Biyik, and Gallic royalty Manuel Amoros and Alain Giresse. Salif Keita and Pele sent their well-wishes. A staggering crowd of 115,000 watched the second match in Yaounde, with its headliner swapping sides at half-time just as ‘The King’ had done at his own swansong between New York Cosmos and Santos in in 1977.

An awestruck 11-year-old will never forget watching it live on national television. Not even the most fanciful of scriptwriters could have concocted the same kid going on become Milla’s team-mate at a World Cup in the statal setting of Twins. There was, however, an intervening chapter. In April 1990, Milla played in a charity game in Douala. Cameroon president Paul Biya, in the crowd, was wowed. He asked the former Saint-Etienne and Montpellier man to go to Italia ’90. The soon-to-be 38-year-old laughed it off. The following day Biya called Milla. After some persuasion, ‘Old Lion’ came around. Biya, thrilled, called Cameroon coach Valery Nepomnyashchy and told him the news. The bullheaded Russian responded that it was not happening. Biya actioned presidential privilege. He issued a decree, Milla signed it and Nepomnyashchy had no choice but to accept. Milla went on to be a sensation at the tournament, averaging a goal every 59 minutes and 30 seconds of action as Cameroon became the first African representatives to reach the quarter-finals.

It seemed unthinkable at the time that there could be life in Milla’s World Cup career. No outfield player in their 40s had ever been to the global finals. Yet when Henri Michel reserved 22 seats for California, where their Group B outings would unfold, his was one. So too, preposterously, was the kid who had watched Milla’s swansong from the village of Nkenglikok. Rigobert Song was still only 17 but, on the recommendation of his Tonnerre team-mate, was the unexpected cub in the Indomitable Lions’ pride. If height had divided Julius and Vincent immeasurably, age did the same for Roger and his “little brother” Rigobert. A staggering 24 years and 42 days to be precise – what remains the biggest gap between team-mates in World Cup history.

“I was in disbelief when I made the squad,” said Song. “I’d watched the 1990 World Cup huddled round a black-and-white television. I was in awe of Roger Milla. He created complete euphoria in Cameroon.

“Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that, only four years later, I’d be his team-mate at a World Cup! I was only 17 and he was Roger Milla!” Milla told FIFA: “It’s a record I am proud of. We showed that Cameroon is a land populated with talent and that we don’t have a generational gap. That’s something that continues to this day. “I’m old enough to be his father! But I learned as much from him as he learned from me. I was blown away by his enthusiasm. He put the same energy into training as he did into matches. In a way, when you’re around young people, it pushes you to maintain your rhythm and energy, and I think that helped me.”

California was now the setting for the most peculiar partnerships in cinematic and World Cup history.

Culled from FIFA