Liberia
Mauls Sudan 2-0
Coach Hey Starts on Positive Footing
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By J. Burgess Carter
Published: 27 March, 2008
MONROVIA, Liberia's German-born national team Coach Antoine Hey sent a
positive note to soccer-loving Liberians that he is prepared to take
the country's football to places, following an emphatic 2-0 friendly
win against Sudan in Omdurman.
The match was part of friendly matches planned by the local football
authorities to help Coach Hey identify talents he needs to prepare for
the joint 2010 World Cup and Nations Cup Finals preliminaries
campaign.
Liberia, parading mostly local-based players who replaced an
all-foreign-based invited by Coach Hey, held the home side to a barren
first half.
With Invincible Eleven's Melvin King between the posts, the Liberians
mounted a sustained attack and found an early goal in the second half
through Koko Lomell of Medan in Indonesia. Lomell's Indonesian team
mate, Murphy Nagbe, captained the side for the match.
The all-local did not rest on their oars and maintained their tempo
until striker Zah Kringar put an icing on the cake to make their first
ever international outing under a foreign coach a decisive one.
The squad is expected back home over the weekend and await a second
friendly against neighboring Sierra Leone next month, to be followed
by a selection of a 25-man team for a training camp in Germany.
The Liberian team, playing under a local coach, had a dismal
performance during Ghana 2008 qualifying and most sports pundits here
believe that a foreign coach could do better.
Meanwhile, as expected, hundreds of Liberians who watched the
proceedings on a local television station yesterday, hailed Coach Hey
for the impressive start, and expressed the hope for more positive
results.
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