18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fortuna Mfou lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fortuna Mfou can pretend not to have heard.
Patrick Bahanack was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aminou Bouba 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.
“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.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Joseph Zene Zobo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Junior Patrick Akongo Evouna is on it.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fortuna Mfou lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gislain Abianda will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fortuna Mfou the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Patrick Bahanack 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aminou Bouba 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Emmanuel Njie has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Patrick Bahanack and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maël Massé 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Fortuna Mfou, another week without a signature from Aminou Bouba.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Kazobar Kasongo is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
48 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fortuna Mfou lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fortuna Mfou can pretend not to have heard.
Philippe Essama and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Aminou Bouba 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Fortuna Mfou, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
76 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fortuna Mfou lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The terraces27 Mar 2028
The mood at Fortuna Mfou has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Patrick Bahanack was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sebastian Arnaud and Fortuna Mfou agree another 3 years.
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 dugout27 Mar 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Joseph Zene Zobo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Junior Patrick Akongo Evouna is on it.
In brief
The dugoutManny Monthé knocks on the manager's door
112 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fortuna Mfou lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fortuna Mfou will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fortuna Mfou can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fortuna Mfou is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Warren Fozing 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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
Something was said to Manny Monthé and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fortuna Mfou lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Clinton Abongmese is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Patrick Bahanack was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Fortuna Mfou has been clear about where Pierre Daniel Épée Ngango stands, which is more than many ever get.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
111 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fortuna Mfou lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fortuna Mfou will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fortuna Mfou can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 10 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at Fortuna Mfou until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gislain Abianda will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fortuna Mfou the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Franck Bekono reports back to Fortuna Mfou with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
In brief
SquadKadad Ning Che falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 58 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aminou Bouba 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zaharaddeen Bello trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
65 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fortuna Mfou lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fortuna Mfou is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fortuna Mfou people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Pierre Daniel Épée Ngango has just signed for Fortuna Mfou, and for once the answer mattered.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Fortuna Mfou have done the hard part with Fauve Azur Elite, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.