The past week in Ghana has been a really exciting one for me, while all of the South Africans in Tamale left after Bafana Bafana’s loss to Tunisia and headed to Kumasi for Bafana Bafana’s final match against Senegal. Myself and photographer Sydney Mahlangu have had to stick around in Tamale for the Tunisia Angola game and will be here a couple more days to cover the quarterfinal between Tunisia and Cameroon.

We have been fortunate in that we had the Group C game between Cameroon and Sudan also to attend, and had the chance of getting close to some of the Cameroon superstars.

Their coach Otto Pfister a German by birth has coached in many African countries dating back to when some of them were still under colonial occupation, went crazy at a press conference after his team arrived a day before their game in Tamale but their luggage and training gear did not.

He also went on about the hotel and other facilities any way the fact that the Cameroonians had to wait on Tuesday morning around two hours to get their hotel rooms gave me the chance to watch Samuel Eto’o and Geremi Ntjap take each other on in a game of chess.

I used the opportunity to get Eto’o to sign some jersey’s for me, one of which will be going to a very happy Chiefs brand manager Dara Carrol who has for a long time professed her admiration for the former African Footballer of the year.

Out here in the most rural of towns in Ghana I have learned a lot and many things that I can bring back with me to Chiefs, I have been working for another South African web site and my focus has not been specifically on Bafana Bafana but on events in Tamale in general.

This has helped me to visit the training sessions and press conferences of other teams as well, obviously it has helped my knowledge on football in other countries, South Africa and Senegal made way for Cameroon and Sudan. The Senegalese had many journalist a large press crew one of the largest traveling crew at the nations cup, with them gone getting access to the media centre is easier.

I also notice that some of the countries give you a lot more access to their star players, and the humbleness of Samuel Eto’o, Geremi Ntjap and the likes has been amazing to see, for the people of Tamale having five Africa Cup of Nations matches played in their town is something special for them and most of the teams have made themselves very accessible to the locals.

The Senegalese and Tunisian teams went to a local mosque for Friday prayers and stopped traffic in town, coming to a tournament in a remote place like Tamale one has to accept that there will be problems the challenge though is working around them. Tunisia though must get the thumbs up because of all the teams in Tamale they were perhaps the most accommodating to the media, and their players were always available for interviews.

What was also nice to see was that the Tunisian players were given a bonus for winning the game against South Africa and got a day off, they asked their Football Association if they could use the money instead to feed a number of orphanages and the players themselves went quietly with out informing the press and laid out the tables and helped feed the kids themselves.

There have also been the fun times in Tamale the behaviour of some of the coaches has been really strange the Tunisian coach takes the cake and the bakery to put it that way, one would think given that he is a well renowned international coach he would refrain from weird behavior.

He had a run in with a television crew and landed up confiscating their tripod and took it on his team from training back to his hotel room, and in a press conference he decided to divulge his deepest inner fears about people breaking into his home at night which was completely irrelevant to the question he was asked.

After two weeks of tracking some of the most famous footballers in the world I am looking forward to returning to Johannesburg and the Chiefs village in Naturena, and should be home some time next week. Getting back to writing about The Amakhosi and the resumption of the PSL is something I am looking forward to; people in Tamale know a lot about Chiefs thanks to the hard campaigning by our own Saddam Maake who set up an unofficial Kaizer Chiefs supporters club.

I say unofficial because Maake has told them that he needs the constitution ratified before they are recognized, all the same with DSTV available here the likes of Itumeleng Khune have become recognizable and popular figures.

Maake has by far been the most popular South African in Tamale while Sibusiso Zuma might have made headlines before the tournament; Bafana Bafana’s poor showing on the field has ensure Maake was the star and has had his picture in the news papers almost every day.

There is one thing that I add need to add every time I needed to get a player specifically one who has been playing in the English Premier League for a while, I let them know that I am very good friends with Shaun Bartlett and that wins me many favours. So this one is for you thank you Shaun there is a special present on the way for you of the Samuel Eto’o kind.

Till next time

Yusuf Muhammad at the Africa Cup Of Nations