Personality of The Week: David Pagou, Indomitable Lions coach.

Cameroon entered 2026 on a lighter mood, probably, good enough to wash off the stress of a presidential election year that threatened the country’s stability in addition to other problems. 

The source of the breeze and ease for the nation is its national football team, which though with a glorious history, had largely sunk into disrepute.

Many a citizen thought what the Lions meant to the nation as one of its strongest strands in the unity equation, could not recover given the tension that greeted preparations for the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON, ongoing in Morocco.

Cameroon went into the competition with an overhaul of the technical bench of the Lions and players alike, leaving out regulars, heightening fears the worst days were about just beginning for a great footballing nation we are.

It was another taste of having a local coach in the person of David Pagou to head the national team that at first didn’t inspire hope. Many are those who had long predicted a dismal outing for Cameroon at a time the giants of the continents football were going to be basking in glory.

On paper, such persons had their day but where Cameroon stands in the tournament right now, the doubting Thomases of yesterday have joined millions of fans of the national team to proclaim that truly, something good is happening under Coach David Pagou.

Given the pragmatism of his coaching spell this far, taking the Lions into the quarterfinals of an AFCON tournament, plus being the first local  coach to attain such a feat, David Pagou, our readers are stating and emphatically so, has gone beyond being the star of the moment to becoming the first major national pride for 2026.

Irrespective of the outcome of the quarterfinal match pitting Cameroon against host nation Morocco today, millions of readers of the most read newspaper in the entire Central African sub region, The  Guardian Post, say, David Pagou has scaled himself to the realm of a lifetime hero for reviving the prowess of the nation’s football team.

The man David Pagou, widely acclaimed as a refined and disciplined coach of major standing, our readers have stated and insistently so, is the first Personality of The Week for 2026.

Pagou, millions of those who read The Guardian Post say, is beyond being in a season of glory, a foremost dispenser of hope, happiness, pride and comfort to a people with uncommon resilience through football.

Some say they see him as an athlete, professional and tactician with incomparable competences in football development that have just begun to shine. 

The glory man of Cameroon’s AFCON 2025 expedition, others say, is getting unprecedented applause for disappointing the lot which thought he had been given a poisoned gift.

For putting his skills to work and transforming a team that was obviously wobbly, sluggish and uncoordinated in play, lacking confidence to regaining its realm of pride within weeks, David Pagou, it is being said, is not only a hero but also a rare highflyer. 

They say, he has cast himself into the league of the triumphant characters that are stabilizing the nation’s social fabric through sports, sending a piercing message of peace, hard work, unity and togetherness to Cameroonians.

Beyond the fanfare that has elevated Pagou to the ethers of an inspirational national icon, there are those who say his humility and humbling tact in nursing the talents at his disposal to build a formidable teams speaks volumes.

With Pagou and through his AFCON journey, many say their take home message from him is that impulse don’t breed greatness. He is being celebrated today as the tactician who used a little known talents to build a formidable squad.

He is seeing results because of his persistence, discipline and coherence in handling the national team in such a short time.

Others say and excellently so that, he has shattered the amateur and local narrative tag on his name as a coach to becoming a global point of reference in formidable coaching.

The power of Pagou’s recent fame has been linked to his ingenuity to discover the task that was laid before him as national team coach. 

He is a formidable, fearless and focused sportsman with a deep knowledge of the power of team work. Pagou is assessed as a man who operates on the philosophy that: ‘none of us is smart as all of us’.

Your Personality of The Week has fired a thunderbolt across the pitches of Morocco with reverberations across the globe, bearing a Cameroonian identity of strength, honour and power. 

While it is team Cameroon doing the job for an estimated 30 million citizens, the man whose face is on the coin for leading the charge excellently remains Pagou.

So far in the tournament, Pagou, admirers say, has done the best he can, now knows more, to do better in coaching the lions. He has shown true nobility in firing up superior quality across all matches the Lions have played this far in the tournament.

The glory of this season is that of a man Pagou who has overcome fear again and again, staying on the path of steady growth. 

At the centre of the attraction, he has sparked across the board, Pagou stands peculiar for being able to change the mind of players to believe in themselves.

If good things fell apart in the national team yesterday, fans say Pagou and his team have shown that they are better things that have fallen together to rebrand the Indomitable Lions. 

Your Personality of The Week is seeing his name being written in gold for being the man changing what he can’t accept at the level of the national team.

Pagou is a man of many fine qualities that are inspiring millions across different disciplines in Cameroon and at large. His monumental rise to fame, many say, is not what is of interest. 

The flowers being thrown his path this season have been provoked by his show of tenacity even in the face of unprecedented risk and challenge.

Those with an idea of whom Pagou is, say the native of  Kaele, in the Far North Region, born January 13, 1969, in Buea, Fako Division of the South West Region, is not a push over. 

Pagou has an inspirational trajectory. He holds s diploma from the National Institute of Youth and Sports, INJS. Pagou also has to his credit a Confederation of African Football, CAF, A License in football and is a Sports and Physical Education Teacher at the University of Yaounde II, Soa.

His passion for football became pronounced in the early days of his career. He started off with Cosmos of Bafia in the Mbam and Inoubou Division of the Centre Region. 

Pagou later had stints at Canon of Yaounde, Renaissance de Ngomou, Eding Sport of Lekie in Lekie Division of the Centre Region.

He also coached PWD of Bamenda where he won the elite one championship in 2020 and the Cup of Cameroon in 2021. 

In 2021, he was part of the technical team of the country’s football team at the African Nations Championship, CHAN. He is also a former coach of Stade Renard of Melong.

When Belgian coach, Marc Brys, was recruited in 2024, Pagou was drafted in by the Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFTOOT, as his assistant while at the same time coaching Cotton Sport of Garoua. In December 2025, he was named head coach of the Lions.

Pagou is today regarded in many quarters beyond Cameroon as a symbol of hope, merit and hard work. For many compatriots, this rare sporting rock is a national asset currently writing his name in the sands of time, inspiring a national renaissance in the process that, we can be masters of our destiny as a nation. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3668 of Friday January 09, 2026