They granted a press conference to justify their choice of players to take part in a tournament in Morocco last Friday.
Hardly have they had time to savour their appointment than the new technical team at the helm of the Lions set to work to prove their mettle. Barely two days after taking over office, the new coach of the Indomitable Lions published a list of 28 players to defend the national colours in an up-coming tournament in Morocco and a friendly against Algeria on November 15. Later on Friday October 28, Denis Lavagne together with his assistants, Martin Ndtoungou Mpile and Pierre Mbarga, granted a press conference at the Mont Febe Hotel in Yaounde to explain their choice and reveal the road map towards the reconstruction of the team.
Concerning the reconstruction of the team, the French man said though the immediate objective is to qualify the Lions for the 2013 Cup of Nations and 2014 World Cup, the long-term goal he said will be to work with football academies, the national technical directorate and other categories of national teams so as to create a broad reservoir of players to furnish the national team. He said he will start off by working with the present cream of players and eventually inject new blood so as to enable the older players pass on their experience to the younger ones who will take the relay in the future. He promised working in close collaboration with his aides though he said he will be the one to take the final decision. He revealed that Christophe Manoeuvrier will be joining the coaching team as physical trainer.
As concerns the choice of players for the Moroccan tournament, Denis Lavagne said the objective was to select a maximum of players and judge them during the competition so as to have players that will be operational from January when the qualifiers for the 2013 African Cup of Nations begin. “We will be playing three matches in five days and it will be interesting to see how these players behave in competition. More so, with the progress of the various championships and cups, professionals play every three days and will soon begin to multiply injuries. So it will be good to have a broad base of players to rely on.
