Marked for Imo Ikemdinachi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Thomas Amang out for 86 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cotonsport Garoua will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market2 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cotonsport Garoua can pretend not to have heard.
Market2 Aug 2027
The offer from Aigle Royal de Moungo for Yvan Aloukou was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Collins Fai and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Djetei was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Bamako have kept their man, and Cotonsport Garoua go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market2 Aug 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cotonsport Garoua, another week without a signature from Emmanuel Utaka.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Jun 2027
A fracture rules Thomas Amang out for 123 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cotonsport Garoua will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market28 Jun 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Cotonsport Garoua have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market28 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Collins Fai 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 Cotonsport Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Paschal Durugbor 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.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
When it matters, Collins Fai plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match11 Jan 2027
Position 2 and 41 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match9 Jan 2027
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Cotonsport Garoua have 7 straight wins of it.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Two goals and a mark of 9.13 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Imo Ikemdinachi arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Imo Ikemdinachi has, at Cotonsport Garoua, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market11 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Cotonsport Garoua did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match9 Jan 2027
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marcelin Mbahbi and Cotonsport Garoua agree another 3 years.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Collins Fai and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.