By: Alimamy Kurish Conteh
Sierra Leone under -17 team Sierra Stars are set to play against their Moroccan counterpart today at the Antoinette Tubman Stadium in Liberia.
According to Alimamy Kurdish Conteh, the Coordinator for Youth Football at the Sierra Leone Football Association said the players are in high spirit to face their Moroccan counterparts in the second crunch tie. He noted after the defeat against Morocco in the first leg the player were dissatisfied, but the head of delegation Alie Badara Tarawallie the Vice President two of the Sierra Leone Football Association talked to the players and encouraged them to put more work ahead of the return leg in today’s encounter with Morocco.
He affirmed that because there has been no Youth Football in the Country at present that is also a key factor affecting the team. While he added that the current Moroccan team has two players who are playing in top clubs in Europe, the one is playing for Tottenham and the other is plays for PGS in France.
He adds that ‘we have been watching them under 20 sides when they play against Liberia -20 side but the under 17 sides stunned us with the first leg, but am confident the technical team has worked on that and we are ready for today’s clash’.
He added that when we returned home am going to talk to the Football Association to develop pitches so that we can kick start our youth football league from the under 15, and 17 categories because those are the areas we need to start to get the right ages of the players as we continue to prepare for International tournament.
” We are currently putting things in place to get the squad together, we want to first start with the M.R. scan of forty players and we will do all that it takes to get them together as we keep on our preparations for the under 17 competition in soonest. He noted that there are plans to kick start the under 15 tournament the main is to scout out players that will graduate from that stage to the under 17 category.
This is the second season the under 17 squads are playing friendlies in Liberia, the last outing they played there secured good results against Liberia as they were preparing for the under 17 qualifiers in Senegal.
Sierra Leone’s under 17 teams have been one of the sides that qualified for the under 17 World Cup in Finland 2003, with outstanding records in the qualifiers, and went to the tournament unbeaten, but they never progress from the group stages.
