The Lions opened scores at the 61st minute through Kunde Juniour, the son of former enigmatic defender of the Indomitable Lions, Emmanuel Kunde. Another Kunde, Malong this time unrelated to the former, sealed the fate of the Chadians during extra time of play as the Cadet Lions dominated every compartment of the field.
The Cadet Lions make their second outing tomorrow against Gabon in a tournament that has largely ignored by contenders. Of the eight countries that were expected in Chad, only four have so far responded present. The defending champions, Central African Republic, were expected in Ndjamena yesterday as they left by car on Sunday. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo republic, Sao Tome and Principe announced their withdrawal from the competition. The competition initiated by the Union of Football Federations of Central Africa under the auspices of its president, Iya Mohammed, has had difficulties gathering steam due to lack of financial resources. Cameroon hosted two editions of the tournament consecutively in Limbe, before Chad could step in to host the event. Whereas the competition is very important in that it enables the grooming of young talents in football.
According to Richard Towa, Cameroon is using the competition to prepare for the qualifying round of the African Cup of Nations in that category, coming up in January. His main concern for now is developing the technical and tactical skills both at the individual and collective levels so as to make the players fit to integrate the junior national team in the years ahead as most of the players were about above age for the cadet category.
