Olimpia Satu Mare have made their interest known and Fortuna Mfou have to have a conversation they never wanted. A manager other clubs ask about is a manager whose next contract costs more.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Didas Miafang was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Raphaël Agoua 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.
Everybody at Fortuna Mfou saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Nobody at Fortuna Mfou 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.
Words at Fortuna Mfou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Didas Miafang 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fortuna Mfou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Fortuna Mfou 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Joseph Mbock signs something — a contract at Fortuna Mfou or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Fortuna Mfou is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Chidozie Ndidi has written the date down.
97 graduates, from a department now rated 7 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Fortuna Mfou was different afterwards.
Fortuna Mfou have received the call every well-run club eventually receives — somebody bigger has noticed Renato Verdi. Saying no is easy; keeping him convinced is the actual work.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fortuna Mfou have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Something was said to Sebastian Arnaud and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fortuna Mfou have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Raphaël Agoua 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.
11 combined actions and 7.01. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Fortuna Mfou will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Marcel Ngamaleu has, at Fortuna Mfou, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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 Fortuna Mfou, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
Boardroom4 Sep 2034
Fortuna Mfou close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 19 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Unisport Bafang moved on, Boris Siani reports back to Fortuna Mfou, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Boardroom4 Sep 2034
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Fortuna Mfou
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.