BY BOCKARIE ALIEU (232news.com) – SALONE TIMES
The Sierra Leone U-19 Men’s national team (The Young Patriots) departed Sierra Leone this past Sunday 16 July to Tanzania to acclimatize with the weather for few days before the Kick-off the tournament.
The team arrived in Kenya early this morning and will head to Tanzania today. The tournament is set to kick-off on the 23rd July 2023 and end on the 31st July 2023.
In this case, the team will embark on few days training and play few friendly matches against clubs in Tanzania. Sierra Leone will be battling with five nations for one space that will represent Africa in the ICC U-19 Men’s World Cup.
The five nations are the host Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Namibia. Sierra Leone qualifies for the ICC/ACA Division1 World Cup qualifying tournament from the division2 competition few months back when they ended in 3rd position at the end of the tournament.
Back from Nigeria, the association hired a foreign coach Kenneth Masinga from South Africa who has been with the team for the past months.
In their preparation, they defeated the senior men’s patriots’ team twice in a friendly match. The new coach has replaced some of the players who went to Nigeria with new players who performed well during the training and trial matches.
After their last match, Kenneth said his Boys are in high spirit and get used to it. He though said that the Boys need motivation to boost their moral to qualify Sierra Leone for the World Cup.
The captain of the team John Bangura assured fans that the sky will be their limit in Tanzania as most of the countries they will be facing are not strange teams to them. He called on Sierra Leoneans to remember them in their prayers.
