Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Jordy Doumbe Youmba 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.
Position 13, 8 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Jean Kameni to a room that had heard them before.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Colbert Binni 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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Gazelle Garoua will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mahman Nourou is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Sony Farell Evina is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jean Kameni after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gazelle Garoua, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.87, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Minute 87, against Fortuna Mfou, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Wanre Daikreo 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.
“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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Jean Kameni was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Gazelle Garoua dressing room was either.
In brief
The dugoutJude Enow Enow asks for a word with the manager
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0‑3 to Stade Renard de Melong, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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 Gazelle Garoua, and it is not being withdrawn.
Housseini Ousmanou 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Colbert Binni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Housseini Ousmanou 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
The dugoutFrancky Manga knocks on the manager's door
9 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.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Arsene Mekila trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Abiola Dauda will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Gazelle Garoua escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Two goals and a mark of 8.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Jude Enow Enow 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.80, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Wanre Daikreo has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Patrick Fergani, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Gazelle Garoua will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
PWD Bamenda go through and Gazelle Garoua go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Marcel Fobang could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.23
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.23, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mathieu Ngansiri and Gazelle Garoua agree another 3 years.
Patrick Fergani 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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Jude Enow Enow is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
In brief
The dugoutDimitri Mbele knocks on the manager's door
Two goals and a mark of 8.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 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.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wanre Daikreo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Arsene Mekila is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Housseini Ousmanou 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.
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Jean Kameni was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Gazelle Garoua dressing room was either.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Gazelle Garoua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ange Constant Kenfack 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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Patrick Fergani did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Maël Monyebe 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jean Kameni after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Gazelle Garoua have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
0‑4 to Canon Yaounde, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Jude Enow Enow 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
Off the academy pitches and onto a senior team sheet at 19. The debut is the easy part; the second appearance is the one every young player has to earn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: PWD Bamenda keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Jordy Doumbe Youmba 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Gazelle Garoua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wanre Daikreo 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Wanre Daikreo
Jordy Doumbe Youmba 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.
Cotonsport Garoua have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Gazelle Garoua will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Gazelle Garoua have done the hard part with Fauve Azur Elite, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Fauve Azur Elite is saying, and nobody at Gazelle Garoua is enjoying the guessing.
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.
Gazelle Garoua asked and Colombe du Dja et Lobo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Gazelle Garoua are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Everything agreed with Colombe du Dja et Lobo, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Housseini Ousmanou 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marcel Bekale has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Stephane Embolo has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Christian Kameni has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Karl Onguene has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Gazelle Garoua will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Colombe du Dja et Lobo have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Gazelle Garoua have made the call to Fortuna Mfou. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.