By Hasbin Shaw in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Head coach of the Sierra Leone under 20 Shooting Stars Coach Ken Tabi has said that his main focus now is to see the U-20 team win on Saturday April 21 2018 in the ongoing AFCON 2019 U20 preliminary in the African Youth Championship Qualifiers at the Bo Stadium. The first leg ended 1-0 away in favor of Guinea-Bissau.
He said the boys are in intensive preparation ahead of Saturday decisive encounter against their Guinea- Bissau counterparts at the Bo Stadium Southern Region.
He said that the team has increased training schedule to twice a day and are also playing lots of friendly matches in other to assess the squad ahead of Saturday return leg in the Africa Youth Championship Qualifiers.
“I am very optimistic of wining on Saturday because now we know the way they play like before the first leg we don’t know anything about them but now I can tell you we are fully ready to the job that can see us through to the next stage of the youth Championship,” Coach Tabi said.
He said that in as much as they are ready to deliver the goods they have to take into consideration fitness, which is what the players seem to lack.
Questioned of challenges during the first leg, he said, “We do have [challenge] but now everything is in place including the Senior National team Head Coach is with us trying to support in technical areas.
The assured Sierra Leoneans that what went wrong during the first match was a mistake, blaming the goalkeeper, who gave a pass to opponent player and the Guinea Bissau Striker capitalized on the faulty pass and scored the opening and only goal of the match.
“Even though,” he noted, “we lost the match our game plan worked because after the goal we played well, we believe to overturn that deficit with a convincing win on Saturday.
Coach Tabi is calling on all Sierra Leoneans to come out and support and cheer their boys to victory on Saturday. This is the first international match for Sierra Leone and the new government.
However, the Team Manager of Leone Stars Christian Dauda has encouraged the U20 head coach to BE IN Bo at least 7 days before the match so they could do some training and have some friendlies for them to get familiar with the pitch. Especially as they have never played in that stadium before I am sure you will agree with me.
He said that it could be great for them to do at least two competitive friendly matches against teams bearing in mind it is a home match for the team. It might turn out disastrous if they don’t understand or get feel of the pitch. Adding that if there’s anything I could do in support of this transition please let me know he said in a statement.
