Marked for Philippe Essama
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Nov 2026
Victor Ehibe and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match28 Nov 2026
0‑1 to Panthere du Nde, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Trésor Mbengue falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match30 Nov 2026
Half the programme played, position 8, 16 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marc Lafleur Essono, and the manager let it.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market19 Oct 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fortuna Mfou they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Carlos Yougouda is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Victor Ehibe in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fortuna Mfou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Marked 8.90 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match17 Oct 2026
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Aigle Royal de la Menoua were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Trésor Mbengue falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.91, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.22 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market21 Sep 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kazobar Kasongo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fortuna Mfou the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Carlos Yougouda is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stéphane Bekolo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jerzino and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Match19 Sep 2026
A 3‑3 draw with PWD Bamenda leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.