August 27, 2021
By Mohamed Abu Conteh
Sierra Leone senior national team, Leone Stars has on the 26th August, 2021 held the Wailers of Ethiopia to a goalless draw in Bahir Dar City Stadium as part of their preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations to be host in Cameroon Yaoundé in January.
According to the SLFA head of Media and Marketing, Ibrahim Kamara said the match is part of the preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations; the team will have to prepare ahead of a football tournament organized by DR Congo where they will be play four or more matches before they will return home to continue preparations.
He affirmed that the Friendly encounter is a FIFA and CAF sanctions matches and it is highly competitive if Sierra Leone could have lost that would have affected their World Ranking. Even though the Wailias of Ethiopia have a good home record the Sierra Leone national home base team was able to hold them goalless draw.
Analyses said that the Wailias of Ethiopia played with high expectation that they will triumph over the Leone Stars of Sierra Leone to maintain their good home record, all that denied by a resilient home base of the Leone Stars team.
In the first half of play the host was of more possession, while in the second half Leone Stars home base side started showing some confident by moving the ball to their opponent half but was unable to net a goal to cement their efforts.
Sierra Leone national team Leone Stars has showed great improvement compared to their last encounter where Leone Stars lost to Ethiopia by a goal to nil in 2018 in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
Meanwhile, Honorable Minister of Sports, Ibrahim Nyelenkeh and the Vice President of the Sierra Leone Football Association, Harold Nat Johnson admonished the players ahead of kick off and admonished about the importance of the friendly encounter mean to the national team and the people of Sierra Leone.
The Leone Stars home base squad was led by Assistant team coach, Amidu Karim standing in for John Keister, while his attention will be to keep the boys physically and high spirit of determination. On their way to Ethiopia two foreign base players Sheka Fofanah who plays in Al Sanaat, Iraq and German Rot Weisse Ahlens defender Daniel Francis were adopted into the squad.
However, the head coach, John Keister is expected to join the team in DR Congo for their next friendly tournaments that is slated for the 27th to the 30th August 2021. On the contrary, Leone Stars will not travel to Kinshasa from Ethiopia, the team will instead fly back home as the Democratic Republic of Congo friendly tournament which was scheduled for the end of this month has been postponed according to the Sierra Leone FA.