South West Flagbearer Victoria United recorded their second straight defeat of the new MTN Elite One football championship following a 1-2 defeat to Stade Renard of Melong at the Limbe Centenary Stadium on Saturday.
Roger Emga and Sindjo Brice scored the two goals for Stade Renard of Melong, while Nji Richmond scored the lone goal for Victoria United – his third goal of the campaign.
This writer looks at two reasons why Victoria United lost their match-day three clash to Stade Renard of Melong.
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1. Historical Reasons.
History scholar Edward Hallett Carr defines history as a dialogue between the present and the past.
The history of Victoria United’s first three games in each of their last three seasons at Elite One before the present campaign is in 2002, 2003 and 2004 seasons, the club has failed to win at least two out of their first three league games in those seasons.
In 2002, the club lost their first two games to Canon and Racing – before recording a 4-0 win over Union.
In 2003, they lost two of their first three games to PWD Bamenda and Coton Sports before having a 1-0 win over Canon.
In 2004, they also lost their first two games before recording their first win over Esperance of Guider in the third game.
That’s how the dialogue of past facts affects the present dispensation.
Also, another historical fact that dialogues with today’s game was that Stade Renard of Melong last won a team west of the Mungo away from home and that was a 2-0 win away to PWD Bamenda on 5/3/2023.
That’s how the historical facts affected the present-day result between Victoria United and Stade Renard of Melong today. Although historical facts are broken the reality is always firm.
2. Lack of Good tactics for Victoria United.
The second point why Victoria United lost to Stade Renard was the lack of good tactics.
The tactic implemented by the home team was to start play from the defence which was dangerous playing against a David Pagou team that came with a good game tactic of counter-pressing (3-4-3 system), this was an advantage to the away side because going offensive, they had five players on the opponent territory and playing defensively, they also had five defenders and four midfielders making it difficult for Opopo midfield to find spaces.
This was evident with Stade Renard’s first goal by Roger Emga because the two holding midfielders of Opopo lost possession due to pressure from the opponent and it resulted in the first goal of the game.
This mistake occurred countless times in most parts of the game.
Although, Victoria United got the equaliser in the second half like I said the tactics of Pagou in the game with five attacking players each time Stade Renard moved on the offensive resulted in the second goal and there was virtually no coming back from Opopo in the game.
The failure to use and exploit the wingers was indeed a great error which would have helped the team to an extent.
There is still room for amendments in the next game.
