The information was made public after a preparatory meeting in the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education last Friday.
Given the geographic similarity between Morocco and Tunisia, the Olympic Lions will be training in Sfax-Tunisia ahead of their return leg match against Morocco, in Rabat. The decision to train in Tunisia is to enable the players to get used to the North African climate before the match so that climatic conditions should not be a deciding factor in the encounter.
Though Cameroon took a great leap towards qualifying for the Beijing Olympics by beating Morocco 2-1 in the away leg played in Garoua a fortnight ago, the national Olympic football team coach, Martin Ndtoungou Mpilie, is not taking the match for granted. He has hired the services of Stephane Mbia who plays with the senior Lions and Ngal Serge for the match. “We have been having problems at the mid-field and the presence of these two players will be of great help to us”, said Martin Ndtoungou Mpile in a telephone conversation with Cameroon Tribune. Quizzed on whether the players have confirmed their participation, the coach said this was a FIFA period and there was no question of clubs not liberating players for the national teams. He said they will be reviewing all tactical aspects of the game during their training session as the Moroccans are not going to be any easy walk over, especially as they will be playing in front of their home crowd.
Cameroon currently tops the group table with seven points, followed by Morocco with six points. The match to be played on October 14 is crucial for both teams as the winner, will likely qualify for the final round of the competition to take place in China next year. It should be noted that after a knock out phase, the nine teams that qualified for the second round of the competition were divided into three groups and only the first team in each group will qualify for the Beijing expedition.
Fred VUBEM, CT
