By: Mohamd Abu Conteh
Sierra Leone Women’s Senior National Team on 21 January 2023 suffered a humiliating defeat as they lost by four goals to one (1-4) in their WAFU Zone A Women’s Championship opener in Cape Verde.
The first half started with pace play from the two nations, but the Gambia Women’s National team is too strong for the Sierra Leone side, forward Catherine Jatta scored all goals for the Queen’s Scorpions ending in winning the Woman of the match award following her outstanding performance in the entire match.
In the last Edition, both Sierra Leone and the Gambia crashed out of the maiden edition of the competition at the group stage in the 2020 WAFU Zone A tournament hosted in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone Women’s team now has a huge task to face another neighboring country Guinea that was manhandled by Senegal’s side by four goals to nil (4-0) in their opening match.
As things stand, Sierra Leone lies in the third followed by Guinea, after the defeat the team held their training at the match venue to brace up for the Guinea clash which is later on Monday.
Sierra Leone went into the tournament with a short preparation and the team only trained less than a week before they departed for the tournament, it is a country where female Football has not been playing for more than two decades.
It is only last year to now that female Football started playing again in Sierra Leone and most of the players selected for this tournament are from the ongoing female league in the country.
The match against Guinea is a must win if they want to progress to the next rounds of the competition and the head coach Howells said the team is in a high spirit to face their Guinea counterparts in the crunch tie.