Topics: African Cup of Nations, Cameroon, Egypt, Joel Matip
Here's why Joel Matip has been trending on Twitter after the finals of the African Cup of Nations.

Cameroonian defender Joel Matip has been the subject of memes and trolls on Twitter since his country's victory over Egypt in the finals of the African Cup of Nations on Sunday in Gabon. Here's how it all started:

As Cameroon's coach Hugo Broos was assembling his AFCON squad, he invited Matip, and other cameroonian players plying their trades for European clubs, to be part of the African tournament. But the Liverpool defender and some other Europe-based players turned down the request. Matip expained that he wanted to focus on helping Liverpool win the league. 

Unfortunately, things did not turned out as he had expected - the reds went from being title contenders to top-four scramblers within a month. On the other hand, Cameroon, Matip's home country, won the AFCON after beating Egypt in the finals. Maybe it was a bad idea to turn down his own country, with the likes of El Hadgi Diouf telling the BBC:

“I don’t understand people turning down their country.

“And like the legend Bob Marley always said ‘if you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where to go'

“Definitely they’ll regret not playing in the Cup of Nations. After your career, what are you going to do? Stay living in Europe? To do what?

“It’s always tough to be African, because you can be the best African coach but they’ll never give you PSG, Barcelona, Liverpool or Manchester United.

“That’s why I say to all the boys: don’t turn down your country because the future of this world is in Africa.”

As if the bashing by one of Africa's greats was not enough, football fans took to Twitter to roast Matip even more. Here are some of the funniest reactions: