By S. Siapha Mulbah
The opening semifinal match of the National County Sports Meet is the pure clash of southeastern football with Maryland and Grand Gedeh counties locking horns.
The two sides in their regional derby have been performing extremely high as they managed to advance further day by day to form part of the current top four of the tournament. Now, the neighboring counties have no alternative but to faceoff this afternoon to have a single representative at the grand final this year.
Last year, the south east was represented by River Gee County who subsequently won the tournament following a dramatic elimination of Grand Gedeh in the last quarterfinal. The resilience then shown by River Gee got the trophy lending in the region where surrounding counties celebrated.
Again, the south east has produced two of the best four teams that are left to participate in the semi and grand finals of the biggest festival of the country sporting sector. With the semifinals starting today, the team that will put out supremacy over the other will rally the support of the remaining counties on the basis of regional solidarity.
This basis is the one of which the best must win this derby in order to have a greater foe that will defend the retention of the county meet trophy in the region since River Gee as current champions could not even qualify from the preliminary stage.
The county meet is expected to climax on February 2, 2025 at the Samuel Kanyon Doe sports complex in Paynesville where all of the final stages are played regularly.
Looking back at their performance from the start of the tournament, the Marylanders left their comfort zone and got to central Liberia where they were paired with Bomi and Grand Bassa counties along with their zonal host Bong County.
The yellow Haper boys dominated the group despite covering longest distance to get to the David Kunyon Sports Pitch. In the round ribbon grouping, Maryland won Bomi and collected a draw against Bong and Bassa to top group ‘A’ with five points.
While the rest of the group members were struggling with a protest case nearly a week to have a runner-up to Maryland in the group, the south east was already celebrating that one of her counties had qualified to see the city.
Hitting the SKD after their qualifier, the first match Maryland had was for the quarter finals against Gbarpolu County. In that match, Maryland suffered a 1-0 gab till the near end when they collected an equalizer to end with the most dramatic penalty shout out of the week.
A son of the county in the goal post named Simon Wesley guided Maryland through the thickest struggle covering up with a save three times when a player missed a chance of converting a kick. The celebration rained in Happer and other places in the county when Wesley saved Gbarpolu 11th kick and scored same for his native land that took them through to the semifinals.
For Grand Gedeh County, the case of the qualifiers gave them the opportunity to host Group ‘B’ in the city of Zwedru providing home to Margibi, Montserrado and Grand Kru Counties. As the host of the group the Zuluwhisky Boys maintained and proved to the participants of the group that they were indeed their host.
Immediately after the first two rounds of matches though it was a round ribbon series, Grand Gedeh had qualified by winning Grand Kru and Montserrado. They ended the group stage with a draw against Margibi County giving them a total of seven point to visit the carpet for the second consecutive time.
Entering the Quarter finals, Grand Gedeh took a call in the fixture to meet Grand Cape Mount. The match with huge anticipation for the Grand Gedians kept their fans in the stadium cheering throughout till some minutes in the added time where their 2-1 lead got equalized.
They too got to post match penalty shoutout with a substitute goalkeeper Darius Miaway saving the fifth shout of Cape Mount and scoring for Grand Gedeh to take them through to the semi.
In a pre-match conference for the semifinals, both teams through their respective coaches and captains expressed confidence in ending the semifinals with the best result to represent the south east in this years’ tournament.
With respect for opponents, Coach Amos Wilson of Maryland and Coach Charles Clark of Grand Gedeh explained that they both have deployed new tactics and system in their respective teams that will give them the result to become the champions of the south east this year.
Though the two tacticians could not disclose the particular new plans placed in their squads, they assured their countrymen that all is in place for a win thus calling for support in the matches ahead.
The outstanding confusion to the region now is the answer to the question ‘who is the real champion of the south east?’ and this can only be answered after fulltime.
