Bafmeng United

For a side out of Bamenda, in Cameroon's North West Region, that stretch of results carried them further than expected.

The regional title itself came against Bang Bullet FC, 2-1 in a final played on the football ground at the University of Bamenda in Bambili, the same pitch the club now calls home as Stade de Bambili. Best Coach honours that season went to Simplice Soh, and goalkeeper Ngam Leonard was named the league's best.

Bafmeng United carry the nickname BUFA, short for their fuller name, Bafmeng United Football Academy, and play in lemon green. One article has also called them the "Ndeghum spear boys," a nod to the club's roots in the region rather than a name in common use. Behind the club sits Zenithe Insurance, whose chief executive, Fon Ndecham Maxwell, serves as club president.

Little of the academy's early life is on record. It surfaces in the football landscape only once results start counting, a regional league won, a place in Elite Two secured, and from there the trail that leads back to wherever the academy first put a team out on a pitch in Bambili goes quiet.