By S. Siapha Mulbah
The senior men’s national team of Liberia, headed by coach Mario Marinica, will officially launch the justification in whatever decision he has taken so far at the new job offered to him in February of this year.
The Romanian gaffer will lead the Lone Star to their first game under his supervision this evening against Djibouti in Marrakech, Morrocco, in the first leg of the preliminary qualifiers of the 2025 African Cup of Nations.
The two countries got to cross paths from being rated among eight nations across the continent as the less performing football nations by the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA). The eight nations were then paired in a draw by the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF), to take place in a two-legged encounter for each of them, so that the best four teams can be placed among 52 countries that will participate in the main group stage event of the 2025 African Cup of Nations that will be played in Morrocco.
The new Liberian National Team manager, along with his deputies, are mandated to perform in the most powerful and impactful ways that will take the Lone Star to the 2025 Nations Cup. This mandate will take official effect as to whether or not the Lone Star can resurface at the premier African competition, after being away for more than two decades.
Since Coach Mario and his team took over the Lone Star from Ansumana Keita, there have been couple of decisions taken and preparation done to ensure the kind of team he envisioned for the country’s national pride.
He has arranged series of training camps, including gymnasium workouts, fitness building, ball drills, and pitch evaluation for the players’ performances. There have also been practices hosted by the Lone Star boss for his squad against some clubs in the local league to ascertain their adaptation of the fast football philosophy that he is a master of.
He has, more than once, invited players from different league clubs to train with him as a means of having a reserved plant of players that will all be of great potential to the Lone Star.
The last thing he did that led to the formation of the squad that is currently in Morrocco to honor the national team fixture against Djibouti was the release of a final squad list of 24 players. In that number, six players, constituting 25 percent, are foreign-based playing in parts of Europe, while the remaining 75 percent, constituting 18 players, are all local-based.
Approximately 50 percent of the local-based players have never had prior experience with the senior national team. With said decision partially justified by the coach at the pre-departure conference, there have mixed reactions from the lovers of the game from diverse backgrounds.
Some believe that the team of officials at the authority of the Lone Star are confident of working with the player that were selected, while others think that the lack of more foreign players in the team could be a problem. There are also some that are challenging the coach’s selection to get the needed result for the team.
For the record, Liberia has met Djibouti twice in the qualifiers of the African Cup of Nation, dating back to 2016, when the Lone got a back-to-back victory against the east African side.
The first leg was played in Djibouti on March 24, 2016, where Liberia collected all three points in a 1-0 win. Anthony Snoti Laffor was the lone goal scorer of that encounter and the result motivated then team coach, James Salinsa Debbah, to finish the job in Monrovia the following week.
On the 30th of the same June in 2016, the Lone had one of its biggest wins (5-0) over the upcoming qualifier opponents. On the score sheet were Sam Johnson, Anthony Laffor, and William Jebor, who scored a hattrick at the Antionette Tubman Stadium in Monrovia.
There have been years of improvement into both countries’ national teams and changes in the kind of players representing the countries. Liberia has a player listing featuring one person that participated in the 2016 clash against Djibouti, and that is Tommy Songo.
