Reviving The Lion’s Spirit!

Cameroon’s national football team will this Tuesday January 23, 2024 play a crucial match against the Gambia in Bouaké whose outcome will determine their fate in the ongoing 34th Africa Cup of Nations in Côte d’Ivoire. A defeat is completely forbidden for the five-time African champions as it will mean outright elimination, at the group phase, of the 24-nation competition. The essential thing is to have a victory and prepare for different qualification scenarios: Either finishing as second of Group C (depending on the scores of the game Senegal- Guinea) and in the worse of cases, vie for one of the three best third-placed teams to sail to the next phase of the competition. A lot of calculations and speculations. Sad indeed!
What places the once vibrant Indomitable Lions at this uncomfortable position is the poor performance in their first two outings of the tournament. Picking a 1-1 tie against 10-man Guinea on Day One and falling too low (1-3) against Senegal in the second group match makes the qualification equation difficult to solve. Bitter pill for supporters who thought their darling team could better their third-place finish at home two years ago to win the sixth crown. More so in Côte d'Ivoire where they lifted their first coveted trophy some 40 years ago. 
As the over 28 million Cameroonians await a promising outcome this evening, the actors on the field need to right the numerous wrongs of the previous matches. The lead trainer who justified the dismal performances on the youthfulness of the squad has been reminded time and again by the Lions’ diehard supporters that the team is wanting in almost all domains. The Lions’ spirit that animated the past generations of the team and which greatly contributed to the several glories recorded thus far is visibly absent in Côte d’Ivoire. 
The tactical game plan proposed by the noticeably amateurish trainer leaves much to be desired. His choice of players and their placement on the pitch is tearing Cameroonians apart. Very few are able to understand what the entire technical ...