SASA celebrate Independence Day

Sierra Leoneans in the Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland areas celebrated Sierra Leone’s Independence Day in jubilation. For the second year, the Sierra American Soccer Association (SASA) organized its second annual Independence Day soccer tournament. This year the tournament was hosted in grand style, there were a lot of teams that took part in the tournament compared to last year and the organizers had no choice but to host it as a two day weekend tournament.

Teams from across the U.S. competed for a grand prize of $1000 and trophies – F.C. Tigers, Sierra Delta of Virginia, Freetonians F.C. of Maryland, Senegal, Guinea, Defending Champions Sierra Stars of Atlanta, Liberia Lone Star of Ney York, Sierra Stars of Washington, D.C., Liberia Debamu of Maryland, Sierra Stars of Ney Jersey and Screaming Eagles were the teams that competed.

Sierra Leoneans and other Africans from all over the U.S. were at the field this past weekend to cheer and celebrate at Sierra Leone’s Independence Day celebrations, it was amazing to see Sierra Leoneans as one come together and celebrate mama Sierra Leone. Music and ‘back home food’ were all available at the field and “it feel like back home” stated some Sierra Leoneans that I spoke to at the event.

The games kicked off on Saturday morning with high intensity and one of the most watched games at the tournament all fans were looking up to was Freetonians F.C. of Maryland who has two Sierra Leone National team players, PaSaffa and Alphajor on their side and Sierra Stars of New Jersey who recruited former Freetonians F.C. team captain Solomon Anthony aka TONNY and another college sensational talented player Kamara on their side. Both teams went against each other in the opening games with TONNY on the bench for the first half of the game which was still even.  Coming from the bench in the second half TONNY made his come back and haunted his former team by scoring the only goal in the game – he took a break ball in the middle of the field and took matters into his own hands and head for the goal where he ended the ball in back of the net. Salone TV Online was at the event to interview TONNY after the match.

With the big stars players Freetonians had on their team, they came back hard from that defeat to win the tournament. It was all a fun weekend for Sierra Leone in the United States! 

Anthony Solomon, USA

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