It is exactly a month to the crucial match involving the National football team, the Lone Star, and her Ethiopian counterparts in the 2004 Nations’ Cup qualifiers.

      Lone Star is scheduled to take on Ethiopia on the weekend of June 6-8, 2003 in Monrovia in continuation of the 2004 Nations’ Cup qualifiers.

     On February 30, 2003 in Addis Ababa, the Lone Star narrowly went down to her Ethiopian counterparts at the Haile Sellassie Stadium, thus accumulating only 3 points from three games in the competition.

Lone Star must beat the Ethiopians at home on the weekend of June 6-8, 2003 in Monrovia to keep her campaign on course. If the Liberians beat Ethiopia on June 8 and go to beat Guinea on the weekend of June 22-24, 2003 in Monrovia, she will accumulate nine (9) points and head the group.

But to achieve such a feat, the Lone Star must begin preparation now. Up to the writing of this article, there had been no report whether the Liberia Football Association (LFA) and the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MYS) had concluded arrangement for the team to begin training.

When this writer contacted Lone Star’s technical manager Kadalah Kromah sometime ago, he said he has completed his training program and is only awaiting football authorities to provide funds for training to commence.

He said home games should not be taken for granted to avoid what happened when Lone Star played Ghana at home in the World Cup qualifiers. “If we begin to train now, we could put our local players in good form and readiness for the match, since we don’t how many professional players the government will be able to bring in,” coach Kromah said.

He then appealed to football authorities to do everything possible in the shortest possible time to have the team begin training for the Ethiopia match.

Lone Star is the only team that is yet to start preparation in continuation of the 2004 Nations’ Cup qualifiers. Other African countries such as Egypt, South Africa, Libya, Ghana, Senegal, among others recently played test matches in preparation for the June 6-8, 2003 Nations’ Cup qualifiers.
–30--