Can Leone Stars beat Chad?

Sierra Leone national football team Leone Stars will start their 2018 World cup Preliminary match 5 fixture away to the central African Side Chad and the winner of that match will face Egypt in the next rounds.

Sierra Leone who looks as the favorite to face North African side Egypt in the next rounds have never qualified for the most prestigious world football festival but has made it to the nations cup twice in 1994 and 1996 respectively since then the country is in the wilderness to make it to both the World cup and the Nations Cup in recent times.

Sierra Leone with majority of it foreign base players playing in Sweden and Turkey whiles others in USA, Holland, Saudi, UK, and Italy are face with a big tasked to qualify the country to it first ever World cup in it 54^th years old history.

According to the SLFA they have shortlisted six applicants for the vacant national Team job whiles the favorite candidate will start with the country Afcon 2017 second group game with Ivory Coast in September and the 2018 world cup Preliminary match 5 to Tchad in October 2015.

The six coaches shortlisted are John Keister (Sierra Leone) Drago Mamic (Croatia) Harzog Carsten (Germany) LUC Eymael (Belgium) Tahseen Jabbary (Holland) and zavisa Milosavijevic (Serbia)

However the recent rating in all competition between Leone Stars and the Sao of Tchad shows they are no minor to Sierra Leone and their rating is far better than Sierra Leone.

The Chad national football team, nicknamed Sao, represents Chad in international football. The team is controlled by the Fédération Tchadienne de Football, the governing body for football in the country, and has been managed by Emmanuel Trégoat. The team has never qualified for the World Cup finals or Africa Cup of Nations. Home matches are played at the Idriss Mahamat Ouya Stadium, 30,000 seater capacity.

The national team had a difficult start − the first match they ever played was in the L’Amitié Tournament, which took place in Senegal in 1963, and it was a 2–1 defeat to Liberia. Soon after, they suffered a 6–2 loss to Dahomey (now Benin).

Chad has produced one of the most popular African players in Europe, Japhet N’Doram, who played as a striker for French club Nantes from 1991 to 1997.^[3] He played 137 matches for Nantes and scored 73 goals. He was also a member of the national football team, playing 36 matches and scoring 13 goals. He finished his career in AS Monaco in 1998 following a persistent injury sustained during a match against Nantes.

The Chad national football team has never qualified for either the Africa Cup of Nations or World Cup. They participated in World Cup qualifiers 3 times, starting in 2000 when they were eliminated in the first round by Liberia, losing 0–1 at home, and playing 0–0 away. They were coached by Marcel Mao. Their next attempt was in 2003, under Yann Djim, but they were eliminated by Angola. They won their first match at home 3–1 when Francis Oumar Belonga scored a hat trick, but lost their away match 2–0, thus failing to go to next phase. Qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup brought more matches because they played in a group phase together with Mali, Sudan and Congo. They finished at the bottom of the group, with 6 points (2 wins, 4 losses). In Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, they made 4 attempts without success.

In the qualifying competition for the 2014 World Cup, Chad faced Tanzania in a first-round playoff. Tanzania advanced despite shockingly losing 1-0 at home at Dar es Salaam‘s National Stadium. The Taifa Stars were tipped for an emphatic victory over the visitors, having won the first-leg 2-1 in N’Djamena. Chad stunned the home side three minutes after the break when Mahamat Ahmat Labo struck to silence the home crowd. But Tanzania managed to progress to the next round thanks to the away goals rule as they were tied 2-2 on aggregate.

Chad played against Malawi in qualifiers for 2013 Africa Cup of Nations. Chad won the first leg match 3:2, but Malawi beat Chad 2:0 in Blantyre to qualify for the final qualifying round with an aggregate score of 4:3.^[4]

In the qualifiers for 2015 Africa Cup of Nations Malawi was the opponent once again. Malawi won 2-0 in the first leg at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre but they lost 3-1 in Chad for the game to end three all on aggregate. The Flames went through on away goals rule. Forward Robin Ngalande turned into a savior for Malawi national team when he came off the bench to score a crucial goal in a 3-1 loss at Idriss Mahamat Ouya Stadium in N’Djamena.

Sao will face an uphill task on their way to the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations in Group G, as they’ve been handed strong opposition in Nigeria, Egypt and Tanzania. Qualifiers will be played on a home and away basis, the group winners and two best second placed teams join hosts Gabon for finals.

Chad’s most popular players today are Mahamat Labbo, Ezechiel N’Douassel, Marius Mbaiam, Leger Djime and Karl Max Barthelemy.

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