AFCON Legends - Cameroon: Aboubakar Vincent in an echelon alone
Cameroon football has known and continues to produce legends. The most recent remains VINCENT Aboubakar who stands tall as the Cameroonian with the highest number of goals scored in a single AFCON edition. His 8 goals in the 2021 edition leaves him in an echelon of his making and in isolation. Here are the record holders in the history of top scorers in a single AFCON edition in Africa.
Philemon MBALE · Author profile ·
Listen to this story
Audio version in preparation · read aloud by your browser meanwhile
Vincent Aboubakar, the captain of Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions, delivered one of the most electrifying individual performances in Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) history during the 2021 tournament held in Cameroon (played in early 2022). With 8 goals in that single edition, Aboubakar not only claimed the Golden Boot, but also etched his name among the greatest scorers the tournament has ever witnessed.
Aboubakar’s goals came in bursts — including braces against Burkina Faso and Ethiopia, and key strikes against Cape Verde and Comoros — as he powered Cameroon to a memorable third-place finish on home soil. His tally of eight goals matched one of the highest goal hauls in a single AFCON tournament in decades.
While Aboubakar’s total of 8 goals is extraordinary, it isn’t the all-time record for goals scored in a single edition of the Africa Cup of Nations. But it does put him in elite company:
Ndaye Mulamba (Zaire) – 9 goals (1974)
The benchmark for a single AFCON tournament, Mulamba’s incredible nine goals came in the 1974 edition in Egypt — a record that still stands.
Laurent Pokou (Ivory Coast) – 8 goals (1970)
Pokou was the first to score eight goals in a single edition, doing so for Ivory Coast in 1970 — a mark achieved before Aboubakar’s run half a century later.
Vincent Aboubakar (Cameroon) – 8 goals (2021/2022)
Aboubakar’s Golden Boot-winning performance puts him alongside Pokou as one of the second-highest single-tournament scorers in AFCON history.
A number of other great African forwards have also produced prolific AFCON tournaments, though none matched the eight-goal mark in a single edition:
Hossam Hassan (Egypt) – 7 goals in the 1998 edition.
Benni McCarthy (South Africa) – 7 goals also in 1998.
Hassan El-Shazly (Egypt) – 6 goals (1963)
Several others have tallied 5 goals in a tournament, including the legendary Samuel Eto’o, Rashidi Yekini, and Karl Toko Ekambi (Aboubakar’s Cameroon teammate in 2021).
These performances, while outstanding, still fall short of the mark set by Mulamba but highlight the rich legacy of goal-scoring excellence at Africa’s premier international football competition.
Legacy & Beyond
Aboubakar’s achievement in the 2021/2022 AFCON tournament carries extra significance. Beyond the goals themselves, they came on home soil, in front of passionate Cameroonian supporters — an unforgettable personal and national story. While the record of 9 goals in a single tournament remains untouched, Aboubakar sits firmly in second place among the most goals scored in one AFCON edition, tied with one of the competition’s historic greats, Laurent Pokou.
His performance serves as a reminder of the individual brilliance that can shine through in continental competition, inspiring future generations of African strikers aiming to top even the loftiest of records.