After Andre Onana recently claimed that Cameroon had a bad experience in South Africa, another Indomitable Lions star insists there was no intention to worsen the situation by speaking out about what happened.
Cameroon were visibly frustrated with their recent trip to South Africa, as goalkeeper Onana publicly described the experience as "unacceptable" due to travel difficulties and scheduling issues.
The team landed in Johannesburg just a day before their 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Eswatini. Since Eswatini hosts its home fixtures in South Africa, the match was held at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.
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After arriving at O.R. Tambo International Airport late at night, Cameroon's connecting flight to Nelspruit was unavailable, forcing the team to travel by bus to Mpumalanga—a journey said to have taken around four hours.
As a result, they only arrived at their hotel at approximately 4 a.m. on matchday, leaving them little time to rest before their game against Eswatini later that day.
The match ended in a 0-0 draw, with Cameroon's players appearing fatigued and underprepared, having been unable to fit in a proper training session beforehand.
While some have dismissed the complaints as an excuse for failing to beat Eswatini, national team striker Frank Magri insists that speaking out was not intended to escalate the situation.
Magri told the Talents d'Afrique show on Canal Plus: "The trip to South Africa was very long. We left the hotel on Tuesday around 8:30 a.m. and arrived the next morning at 4 a.m. Not ideal for preparing for a football match, especially since we were playing at 5 p.m.
"It showed on the pitch. We weren't in our game. We're not going to hide behind that, but the conditions didn't help us. It was important to speak out.
"The goal was to calm down any conflicts that might arise around the national team and say that the conditions in which we were preparing for matches weren't helping us perform well and bring home points.
"When you've experienced what we've experienced, the journey to South Africa makes it very difficult to win a match. The goal was to speak out, not to make things worse, but rather to calm things down and say that it's complicated to play in such conditions.
"This situation hasn't affected my desire to return to the national team. My desire to return to the national team is based on what I experienced when I scored my first goal in the Africa Cup of Nations against Guinea in Douala.
"These emotions make me want to return to the national team. These conflicts don't help us, but they don't affect my desire to return to the national team. That's a certainty."
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By Lukhanyo Mtuta
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