Marked for
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Oct 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Monterio Doujouma
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fauve Azur Elite lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match3 Oct 2029
Out, 1‑1 to Unisport Bafang, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Market8 Oct 2029
Franck Bekono hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fauve Azur Elite can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Abakar Fifen is the hero from the spot
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Abakar Fifen: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Moïse Sakava 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.
The dugout8 Oct 2029
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Match6 Oct 2029
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout8 Oct 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Morel Ondobo Abena, and the manager let it.
Player ratings8 Oct 2029
A penalty is the one moment in football with nowhere to hide, and he did not score it. The walk back was long and the week will be longer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Aug 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Fortuna Mfou waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Fauve Azur Elite is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market21 Aug 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fauve Azur Elite they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Real improvement from a squad player at Fauve Azur Elite
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. a squad player is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
Fauve Azur Elite have gone to Gazelle Garoua with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Jonathan Mairiga and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Moïse Sakava has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The dugout21 Aug 2028
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Squad21 Aug 2028
Words at Fauve Azur Elite training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hope Victor 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 dugout21 Aug 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Samuel Nkono Kwedi, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 May 2028
Moïse Sakava 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 dugout29 May 2028
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Squad29 May 2028
Hope Victor 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 dugout29 May 2028
Abakar Fifen has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Fauve Azur Elite will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout29 May 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dieudonne Yann Mpito trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad29 May 2028
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Fauve Azur Elite will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout10 Apr 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Fauve Azur Elite may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Moïse Sakava 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Manuel Mbollo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Machoer Djisse, and the manager let it.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
Manuel Mbollo gets picked when it counts
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 Manuel Mbollo is on it.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Fauve Azur Elite, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Feb 2028
Moïse Sakava 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 Fauve Azur Elite this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at Fauve Azur Elite training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hope Victor 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.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Moïse Sakava beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match19 Feb 2028
It needed Manuel Mbollo to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Victoria United, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Emmanuel Kunde chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Squad21 Feb 2028
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Fauve Azur Elite are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
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 Kantin Dane Ngomeni is on it.
Looking ahead21 Feb 2028
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Unisport Bafang in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Feb 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fauve Azur Elite is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Franck Bekono commits to Fauve Azur Elite for another 3 years.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Moïse Sakava 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.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
$150.0K was the most the club would pay and Aigle Royal de la Menoua were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. a squad player has just signed for Fauve Azur Elite, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Hope Victor 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.
Match12 Feb 2028
0‑1 to Panthere du Nde, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Emmanuel Kunde to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.