Marked for Samuel Embolo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Mar 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Maxime Ngamaleu
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gazelle Garoua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom5 Mar 2035
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Gazelle Garoua
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad5 Mar 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 Gazelle Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Dec 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Maxime Ngamaleu
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gazelle Garoua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match23 Dec 2034
No end in sight to Gazelle Garoua's wait for a win
7 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.
Squad25 Dec 2034
“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.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Ogino Zeukang 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.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Tumiso Mogakwe 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Dec 2034
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.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Ogino Zeukang 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.
Match9 Dec 2034
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Gazelle Garoua can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Words at Gazelle Garoua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcel Djialeu 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.
Match9 Dec 2034
Aigle Royal de Moungo left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad11 Dec 2034
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Nov 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kwadwo Sulemana
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gazelle Garoua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad6 Nov 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 Gazelle Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Nov 2034
Words at Gazelle Garoua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tumiso Mogakwe 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 ratings6 Nov 2034
Ogino Zeukang was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad6 Nov 2034
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Jan 2034
There were 6 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.
Squad16 Jan 2034
Ogino Zeukang 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.
Squad16 Jan 2034
Tumiso Mogakwe 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.
Match14 Jan 2034
0‑2 to PWD Bamenda, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad16 Jan 2034
The manager makes an example of Samuel Embolo
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings16 Jan 2034
Successful dribbles: 10. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Dec 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gazelle Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Dec 2033
Words at Gazelle Garoua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tumiso Mogakwe 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.
Squad26 Dec 2033
Nobody at Gazelle Garoua 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Dec 2033
Ogino Zeukang 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 Dec 2033
Tumiso Mogakwe 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.
Squad19 Dec 2033
Tumiso Mogakwe has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gazelle Garoua 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Dec 2033
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.
Player ratings12 Dec 2033
Tumiso Mogakwe, 36, rolls back the years — 7.82
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.82 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad12 Dec 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gazelle Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Dec 2033
Marked 9.37 — 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.
Squad12 Dec 2033
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces7 Nov 2033
Anger at Gazelle Garoua spills outside the ground
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.
Squad7 Nov 2033
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Tumiso Mogakwe commits to Gazelle Garoua for another 2 years.
Squad7 Nov 2033
Ogino Zeukang 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.
Squad7 Nov 2033
Tumiso Mogakwe 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.
Match5 Nov 2033
3 matches without a goal for Gazelle Garoua
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match5 Nov 2033
Fortuna Mfou left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match17 Sep 2033
13 matches without a win for Gazelle Garoua
The run now stands at 13, and the questions being asked around Gazelle Garoua are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Sep 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gazelle Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Sep 2033
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.
Player ratings19 Sep 2033
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Sep 2033
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.
Squad19 Sep 2033
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Aug 2033
A knee injury of the worst kind for Arnaud Mbarga
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gazelle Garoua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom8 Aug 2033
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom8 Aug 2033
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.
Squad8 Aug 2033
Marcel Djialeu 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.
Squad8 Aug 2033
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Samuel Embolo and Gazelle Garoua agree another 3 years.
Squad8 Aug 2033
Words at Gazelle Garoua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brian Melingui Tsanga 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.