Thursday Mar 28

Leone Stars must win to eliminate Chad in 2018 World Cup qualifier

By Mohamed Fajah Barrie in London


Leone Stars

Sierra Leone are to host Chad at the Adokiye Amiesimaka stadium in Port Harcourt in the return leg of 2018 World Cup preliminary round qualifying match on Tuesday at 15:00 local time (14:00GMT)

It'll be the second ever meeting between the two teams and it'll be officiated by Guinean referees.

Aboubacar Bangoura will serve as the referee while Assistant Referee 1 & II will be Sidiki Sidibe and Moustapha Toure respectively. The fourth official is Yakhouba Keita.

Leone Stars are going to the match one goal down from the first leg played in N'jamena on October 13.

They need to win by at least two clear goals margin to overturn the result and automatically qualify for the next round.

A 1-0 victory for Leone Stars will force the match to extra time and eventually go to penalty shoot-out if the result remains the same.

Leone Stars will be knocked out if they get a draw or lose or win by one goal margin with Chad on the scoresheet.

Coach Sellas Teteh took the same squad from the first leg to Port Harcourt which comprises of 10 foreign based players and nine home based players.

Among the the foreign players are Skipper Umaru 'Zingalay' Bangura based in Belarus, Stockholm based Mohamed 'Poborsky' Bangura,  Sheriff Suma who now plays in Azerbaijan and the Sierra Leone Football.com Player of the year 2014 John Kamara who plies his trade in Greece.

It's expected that the bulk of the Leone Stars players if not all that played in the first leg will feature on Tuesday.

Leone Stars will for the second time play without in-form forward Kei Ansu Kamara after he announced his break from international duty ten days ago.

Kamara is leading goal scorer in the ongoing United States Major League Soccer (MLS).

Chad ranked 54 places behind Sierra Leone are now on commanding position to go through but can still be eliminated. 

The Central African country is also expected to use the same team that gave them victory in the first leg.