“I see Petrichor on the top of Cameroonian football.”
Having played football as a young adult, Armand Bessala, Petrichor’s Program Director and Coach of Green City, always knew that he wanted to work with children. “I was motivated to coach so I could be a positive influence in the lives of young people in my neighborhood - giving young people a chance to dream of something more.”
He believes that working with children is a big responsibility, with the potential to shape their lives. “It’s a big responsibility because if you mess up their education when they are young, it’s a big problem for society,” he says, emphasizing the importance of a child’s education.
Coach Armand is a native of the Central Region around Mbalmayo and a longtime advocate of women’s football in Cameroon, as well as a vocal promotor of the women’s game. He recognizes there is a huge difference between coaching girls and coaching boys. He believes that when you work with girls you must be very patient and always be willing to learn from them. “Be patient,” he says, “secondly be ready to listen to them, thirdly encourage them so that they will not give up on the sport because of a bad experience.”
He says that teaching children values in sports is very important. “Loving your neighbor, work, patience, these are the most important values I teach them,” he says of the young players he works with regularly.
Coach Armand began coaching in the year 2000, and, with 22 years of coaching and player development under his belt, he rightly thinks he has made a great contribution to Cameroonian football development by discovering new talent, saying “I contribute by finding young talent who later feature in teams across the city, and some feature in the national team.” Armand has been with Green City for most of his coaching career, having also coached elite-level YAFOOT for one year.
He says he enjoys working with Petrichor and believes there is still more that we can achieve together. “The project is based on helping people out not just with football but in a universal [and social] sense. I see Petrichor on the top of Cameroonian football, both the men’s team and the women’s team. I see their future at the top of Cameroonian football,” he states, with confidence born out of his years of experience and passion for working in youth football development in Cameroon.
Words by Nozibusiso Sibiya and John Lewis, with quotes from Armand Bessala. Yaoundé, 2022.