Liberian National Soccer Team Suffers 1-2 Defeat

Zah Kringar Scored the only Goal for Liberia

Sep 4, 2006
by Michael Kpayili / Staff Writer


The Liberian National soccer team, the Lone Star has suffered another major defeat to her Equatorial Guinean counterpart in Malibu, Equatorial Guinea. The game, which is the qualifying round of the group stage was played yesterday, September 3, 2006 amidst earlier internal wrangling in the Liberian Lone Star camp. Liberia is paired in group five alongside countries like Cameroon, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea and the qualification of the top two teams in each zones will automatically qualify their participation in the 2008 Nations cup final which is to be hosted by Ghana.

According to a dispatch from Malibu, Equatorial Guinea, the Liberia Lone Star dominated the mid-field but lacks maturity in ball distribution and coordination. Several scoring opportunities were abused by the Liberia side with immature offense.

The Liberia National team paraded most of her under-23 local players with only three foreign-based players guiding the immaturity of the local stars. The head coach of the Liberia national soccer team Mr. Frank Nagbe earlier recalled close to nine professional players but flight problems from Greece and the demand from other professional players based in Indonesia prompted the coach to quickly substitute the walk away players.

In another group five match, Cameroon dragged Rwanda three goals to zero making them top of group five with three points and three goals. The Lone Star team is expected to return to the country by Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the report of Lone Star defeat was a bit conflicting with the BBC reporting two goals to one in favor of Liberia and VOA reporting two goals to one in favor of Equatorial Guinea. The conflicting news was cleared by the vice president of the Liberia Football Association (LFA) Mr. Abel Lawrence revealing the result of Sunday match in favor of Equatorial Guinea. Liberia lone goal was scored by Indonesian based professional player Zah Kringar.