Marc-Vivien Foé

In the 72nd minute of the match Foé collapsed in the centre circle with no other players near him.

After attempts to resuscitate him on the pitch, he was stretchered off the field, where he received mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and oxygen.

Marc-Vivien Foé (1 May 1975 – 26 June 2003) was a Cameroonian professional footballer, who played as a defensive midfielder for both club and country.

Having initially played for Canon Yaoundé, Foé went on to play professionally in Ligue 1 and the Premier League with Lens, West Ham United, Lyon and Manchester City.

Foé was born on 1 May 1975 in Yaoundé.

He started as a junior with Elite Two side Union de Garoua.

Team members had been in various financial and disciplinary disputes with the Cameroon Football Association, and the squad was a shadow of the one which had famously reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1990.

Cameroon mustered just one point from three matches, and finished with an embarrassing 6–1 defeat to Russia.

However, Foé's consistently strong performances as a defensive midfielder (including a goal assist) prompted interest from European clubs.

Moving to Canon Yaoundé, one of the biggest clubs in Cameroon, he won the Cameroonian Cup in 1993.

After turning down Auxerre for a trainee position, he signed for another French club, RC Lens of Ligue 1.

Foé began representing Cameroon at under-20s when he was called up to the squad of 18 players for the 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia, under the management of Jean Manga-Onguéné.

He played in all of their three group stage matches, scoring one goal in a 3–2 defeat to Colombia in their second match on 8 March 1993, as Cameroon were eventually eliminated from the competition after finishing third.

Foé later made his senior debut against Mexico on 22 September 1993 at the Memorial Coliseum, a match which Cameroon lost 1–0.

His debut on 13 August 1994 was a 2–1 win against Montpellier.

The following year, he was included in the Cameroon squad for the 1994 World Cup, starting all three of their matches.

As in 1994, he played in all of Cameroon's matches.

Though the team performed better than in 1994, they were again eliminated at the group stage, having beaten Saudi Arabia, drawn with Ireland and lost to Germany.

In five seasons at Lens, he won the 1998 French league title.

In 1998, he was targeted by Manchester United, but Lens turned down a £3 million offer for him.

Further negotiations between the clubs were curtailed abruptly after he broke a leg at Cameroon's pre-World Cup training camp, and subsequently missed the whole of the 1998 World Cup.

Shortly after his recovery, he moved to English Premier League club West Ham United, for a club record fee of £4.2 million in January 1999.

He played 38 league matches for West Ham, scoring one goal against Sheffield Wednesday.

He also scored a goal in West Ham's 3–1 win against NK Osijek in the UEFA Cup.

In May 2000, he moved back to France, joining Lyon on a £6 million transfer.

He missed much of the season after he developed symptoms of malaria.

After recovery, he won the Coupe de la Ligue in 2001, and the Division 1 league title a year later.

Foé then returned to the English Premier League, loaned to Manchester City in the 2002–03 season for £550,000.

His debut on the opening day of the season was a 3–0 loss to Leeds United.

Foé was a first team regular for Kevin Keegan's team, starting 38 of 41 matches.

His first goal for the club came against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on 9 December 2002, and he scored five more goals in the next month.

He was in the Cameroon squad in the 2002 World Cup.

On 26 June 2003, Foé died suddenly during an international match for Cameroon, an event which shocked the football community worldwide.

The death was later ruled to be due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

He was capped 62 times by his nation and had scored 8 goals.

He was posthumously decorated with the Commander of the National Order of Valour and had his shirt numbers 23 and 17 retired by Manchester City and Lens, respectively.

His second goal in a 3–0 victory against Sunderland on 21 April 2003 was the club's final goal at their old Maine Road stadium.

Foé was part of the Cameroon squad for the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup.

He played in wins against Brazil and Turkey, and was rested for the match against the United States, with Cameroon having already qualified.

On 26 June 2003, Cameroon faced Colombia in the semi-final, held at the Stade de Gerland in Lyon, France.