By S. Siapha Mulbah
The dream of making the of the Liberian Women Under-17 national team’s debut appearance at the Federation of International Football Association have come under a huge blockade following a 4-1 lost to the Super Eagle girls of Nigeria.
The city of Monrovia in the last few weeks has been a place where a momentous mobilization has been taking place giving the young women team the best of courage to face their Nigerian counterparts in the first leg of their qualifiers after they managed to walk over Senegal earlier at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex.
Despite the gracious participation of citizens to give support and fund that placed the girls in a comfortable position to meet their fixture, things got out of proportion when the visitors reflected on the importance of scoring goals that will take them to their seven-world cup in history.
The realization of the charge to the Nigerians took the players in an attentive finishing frontline that used the slightest chances they had to get a 3-0 win at half time.
Going to the second half with a win was the biggest motivation for the visitors but the Lone Star maidens had to suffer from the gaps created in the first half that resulted to the goals against them on their national stadium.
Now it is just a full-time single match away to decide whether Nigeria will take a home advantage over the Liberian side in the second leg but it is unpredictable to have Liberia hoping of getting the ticket that will take them to the women world cup.
The case of Liberia is to get that single spot in the upcoming women under 17 FIFA world cup ahead of Nigeria is to have the Lone Star traveling to Abuja over the weekend and defeating the first leg winner with a convincing aggregate score stronger than their 4-1 defeat on home soil.
However, the team manager, Coach Sekou D’georges Manubah is still positive that his girls can perform the magic they initially perform against the Senegalese in the initial round.
Grading his team’s performance, he stated that though the result did not go the way their preparation expected for the country’s pride, there was not much difference in the playing rate of his team from the Nigerian side that has the kind of experience especially at the World Cup.
“No disrespect to Nigeria but we saw the game, there was not much difference on the pitch. The result did not go our way but there is another 90 minutes to play and I am positive,” Coach Manubah asserted.
