By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
The Ministry of Sports together with the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) have updated journalists on the outcome of the Male National Leone Stars Team in their participation in the African Cup of Nations football tournament in Cameroon.
The Minister of Sports, Ibrahim Nyelenkeh said the national team last participated in AfCON 25 years ago and that the nation should feel proud for what the team did in the tournament within the shortest possible time of preparations compared to other teams that had prepared for quite some time now.
“The team that we took to Cameroon was in a transition period, as you can see the boys are so young and inexperienced, but they were determined to compete,’’ he stated. He said most people doubted the players prior to the competition, but they proved their critics wrong.
He said this is the only government that has spent a huge amount of money to fund its national team in an international competition of this nature. He said each player got seven thousand U.S dollars in the first match in bonus and appearance fees. He said reconciliation of finances is ongoing to ascertain money spent and that if there’s any balance, it will be returned to the Consolidated Fund, and dismissed rumours that 7 million dollars were disbursed to the ministry for the team’s AfCON participation.
Leone Stars Head Coach, John Keister said that he was awarded a three-year contract with the aim of making a transition and qualifying the team to the African Cup of Nations, which he has done. “What we try to do is to identify young players and blend them with experienced players to ensure that we have a formidable team that will go through our mandate of transition and I believe everyone now knows what transition is about’’ he said.
In choosing the final 28 man squad to Cameroon, Keister said that they sat together as a technical team and chose the players they felt will represent the national team position-wise. He said they started the first two matches feeling very comfortable after thorough research around those teams, unlike Equatorial Guinea gave them a very tough time. ‘’Our approach towards the start of every game is to have a very good start and mind you that prior to us playing Algeria, they had gone 34 games unbeaten. We were rated very low in our group, but through belief, we were able to create an upset towards those called the big boys,’’ he said.
In the team selection, the coach said people were desperate for him to regularly rotate and change players, but he noted that in every change that a coach plans to do, he should respect the opponent in terms of their weaknesses and strengths before making that change. He accepted that the team had a problem with the midfield, noting that the national team lacks a box-to-box midfielder both at home and those playing abroad, so he had to shift Kwame Quee whom he thought would do very good work there. “We want the best midfield players to come and play for us, but since they are not yet available, we have to use what we have at hand and try to appreciate them,’’ he said.
Keister said people should learn to appreciate the boys for what they have done and for the team to pay attention to the home-based players, saying most of the countries that are doing well in the competition have a very solid and strong home base squad.
Copyright © 2022 Politico (04/02/22)
