April 26, 2016 By: Sahr Morris Jr.
Head Coach of Sierra Leone national youth U-20 squad, Charlie Wright says the immaturity and lack of competitiveness were the key causes of their elimination in 2017 African U-20 Youth Championship qualifiers.
Wright’s Shooting Stars were eliminated by the Darling Scorpions of Gambia 4-0 on aggregate as both legs in Freetown and The Gambia ended 2-0.
The former FC Kallon tactician, who was hoping to turn things around in Banjul, was left disappointed to take an early exit from the competition.
“We were just trying to recover after being affected by Ebola for two years and the disease kept us aback in terms of the game,” he said. “It was difficult for me to get the boys together to partake in the qualifiers. These are young boys and we are trying to build a team, which is not easy. I thing we were eliminated because 95 percent of the players are immature and lack competitiveness.”
Wright also revealed that the lack of competitive football locally or international due to the ‘Ebola crisis’ was another deterring factor for his team’s earlier elimination, adding that they had to start from the grassroots to develop the players.
“I believe it is not the end for us as; we will maintain these boys so we can graduate and expose them,” he said, adding that football is back to its roots again as they are now playing in home leagues as well as international matches.
The Shooting Stars boss ended by wishing the Gambia team best of luck in the rest of the qualifiers and hope they make West Africa proud.
The Darling Scorpions will now face Morocco in the second round of the qualifiers. The first leg will be played in Banjul in the weekend of 20-22 May 2016 while the return leg will be hosted by the North Africans in the weekend of 10-12 June 2016.