October 4, 2021
By Mohamed Abu Conteh
Sierra Leone Senior National football team head coach John Edward Keister has on Thursday 30th September 2021 invited 19 foreign based players in a warm up matches against South Sudan, Morocco and the Gambia from the 6th, 9th and 12th October 2021.
Some of the invited players for some of these encounters are their first called up as they look forward to represent the Country.
According to John Keister the head coach of Leone Stars as a technical team
“We want to bring in the best players to come and play for Sierra Leone, but our hands are tied unless we work with what we have and prepared for the AFCON”.
He added that on the foreign based players invited they are working toward a tournament and Sierra Leone is in a tight grouping which needs good preparations.
He affirmed that the Technical team have contacted players like the Yayah Kallon who is playing his professional for in Italian side for Genoas, he is not going to be featured because of Immigration issues and travel ban ,unless there are looking as possibility if he is going to played outside the Country.
He added players like ISSA Kallon who playing his professional football in Holland have been contacted by the technical team and is going to available for the three Friendlies matches likewise for Stevens Caulker is another player who is going to part of the squad, because we want to bring in all these players to see if they are going to work with our system going to the AFCON.
John Keister said there are no hiding secrets that the national team has a problem in the Central midfield area which was a key problem for them in the qualifiers, but as a technical team they are looking forward to address that area before the AFCON in Cameroon Yaounde.
He added that in these international windows they decided to bring in more Central Midfield players to test the players that can fit in to the systems they want to use in the tournament.
He furthered that the Friendly matches are as they for them as a technical team to identify players as they are not results oriented.
“We are going to be more competitive but he maintains the aim is to identify players going to the tournament”, he stated.