Ahead of Leones Stars’ match with Seychelles in the 2015 preliminaries of the Africa Nations Cup qualifiers on Saturday July 19 at the Siaka Stevens Stadium in Freetown, Head Coach, Jonathan Mckinstry has invited 18 foreign based and six home based players to camp.
Eliminating Seychelles will see Leone Stars proceed to the group stage which is very much the expectation of football loving fans.
Coach Mckinstry has announced that training starts on Monday, July 14 with hope that all invited players would have been in town. A 27-man delegation from Seychelles is expected in Freetown on Tuesday.
“We are doing all we can to ensure that the boys remain focused as this match is very much important to us. We want to continue from where we stopped against Swaziland and I’m sure we can make it if we concentrate,” Coach Mckinstry said.
On the team list, the coach pointed out that most of his key players are getting fit though he expressed doubt that Michael Lahoud who plays for Philadelphia Union in the United States would not be available due to technical conditions in his contract.
He assured that Alhassan Crespo Kamara would be available as well as Tetteh Bangura to bolster the forward line as the team will need to win convincingly to prove themselves for the challenges ahead.
“The Seychelles team is taking this fixture very seriously as they need it to move to the next stage and improve on their ranking; therefore, it is expedient that we take it even more seriously than them because we have a superior FIFA ranking and therefore should not afford to lose this match. We must win by a huge margin and avoid conceding a goal,” Coach Mckinstry added.
As to how he planned to ensure that Leone Stars doesn’t concede at home, Coach Mckinstry said he has his best defenders available and the tactics he would use will be such that even though they would be hungry for goal, they would not forget to come back and defend.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) has announced that Referee Bienvenu Sinko from Cote D’ivoire will be the central referee for the match in Freetown to be assisted by Moussa Bayere and Bi Valere Gouho while the fourth official is Kouame N’dri (all from Cote D’ivoire). The Match Commissioner is Linus Mba from Nigeria.
By Bernard Turay
Monday July 14, 2014