Marked for Jacques Kotto
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match26 Dec 2026
14 matches without a win, and then this, against Canon Yaounde. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Match26 Dec 2026
The 89th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Abiola Dauda decided nobody was going anywhere. Canon Yaounde had no time left to answer.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Wanre Daikreo goes up and wins it — 7.73
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.73 for the rest of it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Housseini Ousmanou and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Time is catching up with Abiola Dauda
Everybody at Gazelle Garoua saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Match26 Dec 2026
A 2‑1 win over Canon Yaounde, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces28 Dec 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jacques Kotto commits to Gazelle Garoua for another 3 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Gazelle Garoua's wait for a win
14 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gazelle Garoua has to find a result from somewhere.
Match19 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑3 by Cotonsport Garoua, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Match21 Dec 2026
Position 13, 8 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Jordy Doumbe Youmba 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.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match21 Dec 2026
Position 13, 8 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Boardroom21 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Gazelle Garoua dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Jean Kameni to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Gazelle Garoua's wait for a win
13 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gazelle Garoua has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Jude Enow Enow and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Djakao Barka, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Prat Manyo and Gazelle Garoua agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match12 Dec 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Jean Kameni: “We have to be better”
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Colbert Binni 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Prat Manyo: “I am not a substitute”
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Gazelle Garoua will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.