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.
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.
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.
Fady Nagah 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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
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.
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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Fortuna Mfou is running low.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fortuna Mfou, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mahmoud Labib is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
In brief
SquadWords at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Takumi Matsui is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 138 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fortuna Mfou, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Cotonsport Garoua for Kazobar Kasongo 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.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Fortuna Mfou know it.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 145 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
$210.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fortuna Mfou, and it is not being withdrawn.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Léon Dilane Balomog was one of the reasons people came, and $210.0K does not replace that by itself.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Aliou Souleyman Hendji 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christianno 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Fabrice Onguene has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Add another name to the list: Dynamo Douala have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Serge Eloundou. The answer from Fortuna Mfou has not changed — yet.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christianno 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.
5 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 117 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Fortuna Mfou is running low.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fortuna Mfou, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Fortuna Mfou can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“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.
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 easiest signature of my career.” Junior Patrick Akongo Evouna and Fortuna Mfou agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“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 Christianno.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Takumi Matsui 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.
In brief
SquadFady Nagah loses the manager who believed in him
BoardroomFortuna Mfou pull $117.8K back off the table