Marked for Patrick Dawa
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2043
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aigle Royal de la Menoua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad3 Aug 2043
Cecil Meyeke 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 Aigle Royal de la Menoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2043
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market27 Jul 2043
The bid was some way short and Aigle Royal de la Menoua did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market27 Jul 2043
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aigle Royal de la Menoua is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad27 Jul 2043
Cecil Meyeke 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Jul 2043
Cecil Meyeke 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 Aigle Royal de la Menoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom6 Jul 2043
9 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.
Squad6 Jul 2043
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.
Squad6 Jul 2043
Landry Mani gets it from the manager
“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 Feb 2043
A season average of 7.39 with 28 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market16 Feb 2043
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aigle Royal de la Menoua is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match14 Feb 2043
6 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad16 Feb 2043
Cecil Meyeke 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.
Match14 Feb 2043
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad16 Feb 2043
The manager makes an example of Jason Moulle
“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 Feb 2043
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad16 Feb 2043
Elton Ndzeryuy has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Aigle Royal de la Menoua 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 terraces16 Feb 2043
The spotlight tightens on Jason Moulle
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Sep 2042
Cecil Meyeke 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.
Match27 Sep 2042
It needed Eric Moukandjo to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against PWD Bamenda, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad29 Sep 2042
Elton Ndzeryuy has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Aigle Royal de la Menoua 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.
Squad29 Sep 2042
Landry Mani gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad29 Sep 2042
Desire Njie dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings29 Sep 2042
Successful dribbles: 10. 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
Uneasy
Squad1 Sep 2042
Cecil Meyeke 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 Aigle Royal de la Menoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Sep 2042
Jacques Aboubakar has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Aigle Royal de la Menoua 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.
Squad1 Sep 2042
Landry Mani knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Landry Mani trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match1 Feb 2042
7 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.
Squad3 Feb 2042
Cecil Meyeke 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 Aigle Royal de la Menoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Feb 2042
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benjamin Choupo-Moting, and the manager let it.
Squad3 Feb 2042
Eric Moukandjo knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Aigle Royal de la Menoua, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Player ratings3 Feb 2042
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings3 Feb 2042
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Match1 Feb 2042
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Dynamo Douala? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.