BY BOCKARIE ALIEU
232NEWS, FREETOWN
Sierra Leone will start the 2026 World Cup qualifier campaign against Ethiopia on Wednesday 15th November 2023 at the Mohamed V Stadium in Casablanca.
The host country Ethiopia chose Morocco to play all home matches due to the ban on their playing grounds. In this case, the FA has decided to let the team travel to Morocco early to start training there with some of the invited home base players. According to the FA, most of the players are presently busy with their various teams for the premier league which will kick-off this weekend.
Starting training now in Sierra Leone will obstruct their club trainings. The FIFA 2026 World Cup will be cohosted by USA and Canada.
After the Ethiopia match, Sierra Leone will host Egypt in the second match at the Samuel K Doe Stadium in Monrovia Liberia as their own stadium is also under ban.
Sierra Leone falls in group A which comprised of Egypt, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Sierra Leone started their campaign for the World Cup with an appointment of new technical team headed by Amidu Karim.
Amidu was the 1st assistant coach in the former technical team headed by John Keister. The new technical team started their job with two friendly matches in Morocco against Benin and Somalia.
In the first friendly match, Benin forced Sierra Leone to a 1-1 draw with Benin scoring the equalizing goal in the additional time of the second half.
In the second match, Sierra Leone defeated Somalia 2-0 at full time in Morocco. The 9 groups battling to qualify for the 23rd FIFA World Cup will all start with two matches’ home and away in November 2023 and will end the campaign in 2025 with playoffs.
The team will depart to Morocco few days to the match against Ethiopia where they will be joined by the invited foreign base players. The technical team head coach is confident that they will either get a point against Ethiopia or they will grab all three points.
