September 13, 2021
By: Dadson A. Musa
John Keister is the current coach of the Sierra Leone football national team, Leone Stars. He was part of the national team himself as a player and he played in midfield.
He also played for clubs in England before hanging his boots.
Since then he has sojourned into coaching. Of recent, Keister has coached a premier league club in Sierra Leone, East End Lions and won the last concluded premier league in 2019.
He won accolades as assistant to Sellas Tetteh, the Ghanaian who was in charge of the national team briefly. John Keister has qualified the national team, Leone stars after 25 years of prolong wait. And the burden of expectation for him to make impact in the fourth coming nation’s cup in Cameroun is so huge that he does not feel daunted about it.
He is one of the few local coaches who can speak fluent English and when asked how he made it he said it is “part of his personal development.” His footballing career cannot be compared to the likes of Mohamed Kallon but he has made the difference as a coach in Sierra Leone. He is medium height and seems to be somebody who is focused on what he is doing.
He is still in his prime and has the best years ahead of him when it comes to football matters. I caught up with him at the Kingtom football academy and was trying to give a helping hand to the female under-20 national team in preparation for world cup qualifying against Guinea. While the African Nations Cup is four months away and players have gone to their respective clubs he is keeping busy by helping out with the female national under-20 side.
Sierra Leone has been drawn in a group with Ivory Coast, Algeria and Equatorial Guinea. That seems a tough group but the Leone stars coach is not scared by great African footballing nations like Algeria and Ivory Coast especially. He told this medium that the “team is going to compete” and does not see those two countries as “impossible to beat.
Keister decries the negativity in Sierra Leoneans but he said he closes his eyes and ears to them and carries on with his work. He praises government support so far and has no doubt that they will continue to be supportive until the tournament starts. The reason for his success as national coach so far is the blending of home-based players and foreign –based players. In the past according to Keister, there used to be rift between these two set of players which may have been responsible for the poor performance over the years of the national team.
Keister recognizes the fact that foreign –based players are on the whole established and exposed to state-of-the-art training facilities which our home-based players are lacking at the moment but that does not stop him from fielding any home-based player in the starting eleven who proven his worth. Discipline has been a serious problem for our national team but according to him that has been put behind the team. That is why he regrets it when people come to plead on behalf of Musa Tombo when he wants to treat him in disciplined way even when he realizes that the lad is good player.
Going into the nation’s cup his Achilles’ heel is lack of a substitute goal keeper. This one has come as a result of limited players to choose from. Pressed if Sierra Leone can move past the group stage he replied that he is very “confident” of that
“Sierra Leoneans must develop a positive attitude towards the national team and constructive in their criticism of the work he is doing” he advised.