Cameroon had a chaotic AFCON build-up, but they have proved they are not to be underestimated
Cameroon began the month in crisis, but suddenly they look like a real team, full of hunger.
When the uncapped Valerenga midfielder Brice Ambina withdrew from the Cameroon squad on the eve of the Africa Cup of Nations, new coach David Pagou responded with a surprise call-up.
Arnold Mael Kamdem, a 25-year-old midfielder, was a vaguely familiar name to Cameroonians, but only those with a decent memory, seeing as he had left the country for a career in Brazil in 2020.
Kamdem has since bounced around so many clubs that even the teamsheet from Sunday night’s game against the Ivory Coast was out of date.
According to the records of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Kamdem was currently playing for a team in the Amazonian basin called Penarol, but on December 8, he joined his 13th Brazilian club. Sixth-tier Sport Sinop are from one of the remotest parts of the Mato Grosso region, close to the Bolivian border.
Pagou knew Kamdem when he was a coach at Renaissance de Ngoumou seven years ago. Around that time, Kamdem was selected for Cameroon’s Under-20 team, where Pagou served as a fitness trainer.
Kamdem did not appear in Marrakech, and he is yet to feature across two games in Morocco, but his presence at AFCON 2025 might, in some ways, come to symbolise the civil war that has ripped through Cameroonian football over the past 18 months.
The opposite factions are Fecafoot, the country’s football federation, led by president Samuel Eto’o, and the ministry of sport, who appointed Pagou’s predecessor, Marc Brys, in the summer of 2024.
Samuel Eto’o, pictured in May 2024 (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images)
The pair have been openly critical of one another ever since, with the national team setup becoming a battleground for control. November proved to be a key month because after Brys failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, Eto’o won another four-year term in his role.
On December 1, Fecafoot released an extraordinary statement that announced the sacking of Brys, just two weeks before the squad was due to arrive in Tagazhout near Agadir to begin their preparations for AFCON.
Brys was accused of 11 “professional failings” that ranged from alleged non-attendance of meetings convened by the federation, to the publication of squads and the organisation of press conferences without prior authorisation.
The claims went on and on. Brys was cited for supposedly not complying with marketing schedules, as well as refusing to communicate training programmes and providing reports after international matches. Fecafoot also accused him of the “incitement of defiance” towards the federation through players.
When approached by The Athletic at the start of December, Brys stressed that he had not been informed of any decision by the ministry of sport, which he answered to rather than Fecafoot. Brys promptly named his squad, but in the meantime, his replacement, Pagou, provided another list of players, with some notable absentees, including goalkeeper Andre Onana and captain Vincent Aboubakar.
