Marked for Andre Ekambi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Oct 2035
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Squad8 Oct 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Unisport Bafang this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings8 Oct 2035
A performance of 9.70 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings8 Oct 2035
Herve Njie runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings8 Oct 2035
Marked 8.38 — 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.
Squad8 Oct 2035
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Sibongakonke Nkosi is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad8 Oct 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Desire Moukoudi, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces24 Sep 2035
The mood at Unisport Bafang 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.
Market24 Sep 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Unisport Bafang is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Boris Mbarga 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.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Mohamed Belgourai 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.
Match22 Sep 2035
0‑2 to Dynamo Douala, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Feb 2035
No end in sight to Unisport Bafang's wait for a win
17 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Unisport Bafang has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad5 Feb 2035
Karl Bassogog damages knee ligaments — 60 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Unisport Bafang is running low.
Player ratings5 Feb 2035
Achille Fokem, 35, rolls back the years — 7.83
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.83 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad5 Feb 2035
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market5 Feb 2035
Only the photograph left for Michel Song
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Michel Song will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Unisport Bafang the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad5 Feb 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Unisport Bafang this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Feb 2035
Mohamed Belgourai 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.
Match3 Feb 2035
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces25 Sep 2034
The mood at Unisport Bafang 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.
Squad25 Sep 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Unisport Bafang this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Sep 2034
Mohamed Belgourai 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.
Match23 Sep 2034
0‑1 to Dynamo Douala, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Sep 2034
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Andre Ekambi commits to Unisport Bafang for another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Jun 2034
The offer from Aigle Royal de Moungo for Michel Song 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.
Squad26 Jun 2034
Franck Tientcheu 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.
Market26 Jun 2034
Fortuna Mfou are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Unisport Bafang will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad26 Jun 2034
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.
Market26 Jun 2034
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Unisport Bafang know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market26 Jun 2034
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Emmanuel Dakana may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.