They are bracing up for the second round qualifiers next May 22, 2016.

The U-20 national football selection continue fine-tuning their skills ahead of the beginning of the second round qualifiers for the 20^th edition of the Africa cup of nations in that category to take place in Zambia next year. According to the coach of the U-20 Lions, Cyprian Besong Ashu, the essence now is laying the groundwork towards the construction of a conquering national football team.

For this reason he said though he was in camp with 34 players, the door is not yet shot to anyone as his objective is to select only the best to defend the national colours. “Even two weeks to the encounter, I can still call up any players I think fit,” he said. The squad in camp is essentially made up of home-based players and the coach says for a foreign based player to be shortlisted, he must prove to be two or three times better than the home-based player.

Work now is centred on building an identity for the players as many are not used to the tempo of work in the national selection. The team is training twice a day at the Fecafoot technical centre in Odza-Yaounde. The training camp which began since March 14, will run up to the eve of the encounter during the weekend from May 21 to 22 with the possibility of an extension. It was punctuated recently by a friendly match against Morocco which ended in a one-nil victory of the Junior Lions against the junior Atlas Lions of Morocco. A series of warm up matches have been earmarked in the bill up to the qualifier encounter which will be either against Zimbabwe or Botswana.

Cameroon was exempted from the preliminary round of the qualifiers owing to their track record and will therefore face the winner of the preliminary round encounter between Zimbabwe and Botswana in the second round qualifiers. In case of victory, Cameroon will have to face the winner of the encounter between Libya and Benin in the third and last round qualifiers. The confrontation which will be on home and return leg basis, will be in July.

Cameroon has a rich track record in the competition which they won in 1995. Cameroon emerged runner-up four times; 1981, 1993, 2009 and 2011. In 1999, they were third. The defending champions are Nigeria who have won the competition seven times and emerged runner ups twice and third, thrice.