7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Stade Renard de Melong has to find a result from somewhere.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joseph Godstime 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.
Cedric 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Olivier Fai commits to Stade Renard de Melong for another 3 years.
The dugout18 Sep 2034
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Fauve Azur Elite next, and one man in the Stade Renard de Melong dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Eric Moukandjo, 18 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
In brief
The dugoutFabrice Kunde has become a man the manager trusts
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Junior Kuidjeu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stade Renard de Melong the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stade Renard de Melong can pretend not to have heard.
$3.0K was the most the club would pay and PWD Bamenda 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. PWD Bamenda have kept their man, and Stade Renard de Melong go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 Fabrice Kunde is on 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joseph Godstime 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cotonsport Garoua have kept their man, and Stade Renard de Melong go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Franck Ntsague and Stade Renard de Melong agree another 2 years.
The offer went to PWD Bamenda this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joseph Godstime 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.
Edgar Toko-Ekambi 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.
6 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.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Franck Ntsague's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 Stade Renard de Melong, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stade Renard de Melong this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joseph Godstime was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Mohamed El Khaloui is on it.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Stade Renard de Melong could ask drops and the wages Junior Kuidjeu can ask rise.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stade Renard de Melong, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Eric Moukandjo on the training pitch