ACTUALITE |
17.07.2002
CAN 2003: Junior Lions Sharpen Claws
First eliminatory match against Tanzania next Sunday in Yaounde.
For close to two weeks, some 42 players called to camp for preparatory activities ahead of next year’s junior African Football Cup competition to hold in Burkina-Faso have been subjected to technical and tactical tests. In the words of Junior Lions’ head coach, 39 year-old Nanga Lucien, discipline and collective play are the key issues in the camping in the efforts to reconstruct Cameroon football after dismal performance of the Indomitable Lions in Korea-Japan last month. The training session split into two phases encompasses the selection of 25 players and the subsequent improvement upon individual ability blended in collective play in the desire to construct a team that can chart victory in international football tournament.
The team that has been training in Yaounde in prelude to their eliminatory match for CAN 2003 against Tanzania next Sunday bears some signs and symbols of greatness. Apart from the treasure of budding talents, the under twenty Lions’ zeal to go places can be read from their spectacular play characterised by swiftness and accurate passes. In testing their might, the Junior Lions last Saturday crushed Dragon, a Yaounde second division club. The match that was marred by heavy rainfall which rendered the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium slippery but tolerable ended on an 8-1 spanking of Dragon. Head coach, Nanga Lucien, plans another encounter against Tonnere tomorrow to enable him select the first eleven that will be playing against Tanzania on Sunday. The coach, a veteran striker of Lions of Yaounde and Tonnere is quoted saying that, his experiences in Cameroon football are such that can enable him right some wrongs and instil discipline and lesser money-minded spirit in the present generation of players. Nanga Lucien expresses the opinion that apart from technical and tactical output that can ensure success in a team, discipline is an aspect that contributes to the victory of the squad. Asked why he stressed so much on discipline, the physical educator of the Junior Lions is sanguine that much can be achieved when both players and managers respect one another and function in an orderly manner. The trainer is categoric that stubborn players even if they were to be the best will not have any place in the team in an exercise that looks like moral purgation within the Junior Lions. The determined coach holds a matrise certificate in coaching from the University of Claude Bernard in Lyon-France and promises quantitative training within the strict respect of professional exigencies.
Joe TIEMUNCHO
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