Sports
Liberia Leaves For Nigeria For Crucial Tie
- Details
- Published on Thursday, 11 October 2012 11:44
- Written by Dweh Nimley
Following a 4-3 defeat to the Menas of Niger in an international friendly match Tuesday, the national football team of Liberia leaves for Calabar today to play their Nigerian counterpart in the second leg of the South Africa 2013 African Cup of Nations qualifier. In the first leg, the two countries played to a 2-2 draw at the Samuel Doe Sports Complex in Paynesville in September.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with this paper Wednesday, LFA Communication Director Henry Flomo said the match against Niger was part of several training sessions conducted by the team technical staff.
Flomo said the team will depart the country today via a Cellcom GSM 145 seated charter flight for Calabar, Nigeria.
He told reporters that most of the players invited for match have begun arriving on the team training camp in Accra, Ghana. He said that players making up the selection are in readiness for the match. More than fifteen oversea based players have been invited for the country crucial away qualifier.
Some of the players making the trip include: Zah Krangar of Indonesia, Sekou Jabateh of CSKA Moscow in Russia, Junior Wilson of Indonesia, Solomon Grimes of Sweden, Theo Weeks of Turkey, Tony Tisdell of Turkey, and Alseny Keita of France, Boakai Foday among others.
Locals also making the list of players include magic hands Nathaniel Sherman, skipper George Gebro, Isaac Pupo alias Zola,Teah Dennis, Marcus Macauley, Martin Kandul among others.
In a related development, the Chairman of the Liberia 2012 mobilization committee Representative Edwin Melvin Snowe has said necessary mechanism has been into place to ensure that Liberia qualify for next year Nations cup.
According to him, the players and the technical staff have received their game perdiem and arrears that were owed them.
Mr. Snowe said the team has nothing to worry about and what they need to do is to come from Calabar with flying colors.
He explained that due to the importance attached to the match and to avoid match scandal, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has assigned more than five match officials from across Africa to the match.
Liberia last performance at the African Cup of Nations was a decade ago at Mali 2002, during the famous soccer legend turned politician George Manneh Weah era. Liberia has so far only managed to participate in two of the CAF 43 nations cup, while Nigeria has been represented in 41 respectively.
