Lone Star Pulls 3-2 Victory

Thursday, 27th July 2006
By Michael Gebeh


The Lone Star of Liberia yesterday emerged as a 3-2 winner in the first match of a three-day tournament, taking place at the Antoinette Tubman Stadium in Monrovia.

The tournament is in commemoration of Liberia’s 159th Independence Anniversary and is geared toward raising funds for the support of the national team. The tournament is organized by the Liberian Football Association (LFA) with the support of the government.

The Lone Star, comprising of purely local based players clinched a superb and fantastic victory over the SDU All Stars comprising of veteran Liberian footballers like Friday Roberts, James Debbah, and Boye Charles blended with other players.

The victory marks the first for the national team since the appointment of Frank Jerico Nagbe as head coach of the team.

With less than a month of training under the watchful eyes of coach Nagbe, the young Liberian team consisting of solely and purely local based players, performed their gymnastics and styles to the cheer of football fans who turned out to support the team.

Lone Star created the opportunity during the first half of the match and utilized them, scoring three beautiful goals.

The team got the opener as early as the 7th minute in the game. The goal came through Mighty Barrolle Nuzohn Kulala, wearing the number 3 jersey of the national team.

As though the opener was just the beginning of scoring, the team went on firing more and more pressure and went on to get the second goal two minutes later. LISCR Ben Martin scored the goal in the 9th minute of the match.

In the 18th minute, Dorley Andrews got a cancellation goal for the all stars.

The game was marked with fine ball displays and tactics from both local and veteran players. Coach Jerico Nagbe could be seen on the bench of the national team instructing his boys to attack for more goals, while cautioning them to remain vigilance on the counter attack.

Soon the tactics of coach Nagbe paid off once more, as in the 32nd minute, Ben Martin was able to produce his second goal thus giving the national team a 3-1 lead.

Coach Nagbe boys were prepared to withstand the pressure from the all Stars despite the introduction of one time Lone Star’s “Miracle Man” James Salinsa Debbah on the side of the All Stars.

The aged legs of Debbah and even the inclusion of Boye Charles in the second half of the game could not intimidate the local boys as they went pressing on and keeping their defense clear from threats.

The footwork of veterans, James Debbah, Boye Charles and other posed more and more threats to the young and immature national team. In the 53rd minute, the veterans got their second goal through an own goal. Perhaps this was the result of the pressure posed by James Debbah, Boye Charles and the rest.

Both teams played with caution and made little attempts on goal expect for the last minute of adding time when the all stars nearly produced the goal, which would have been recorded in history, but the goalkeeper of Lone Star denied it.

After the match, Coach Nagbe who spoke to the press said he was satisfied with the local players with just few weeks of light training. He said they could be compared to any of the foreign players out there and that there were not many differences among them.

He said the current national team players were all from the under 23 national team and there were not many problems with them but that he could introduce other players where deficiency could be spotted.

SDU All Star will engage the Indonesia based tomorrow, Friday while on Sunday Lone Star will take on Indonesia based team as the remaining two matches in the tournament.