Sierra Leone head coach Amidu Karim was disappointed after his team failed to secure a point at the Levy Mwanawansa Stadium in Ndola against Zambia’s Chipolopolo Boys in a 2025 Morocco Africa Cup of Nations (AfCON) qualifier, which ended 3-2 in favour of the home side.
The Leone Stars came from behind twice through Augustus Kargbo and Hindolo Mustapha to cancel Kennedy Musonda and Kelvin Kampamba’s goals before Kings Kangwa scored a late winner from a free kick.
Reacting after the match, Amidu said, “Of course. I’m very disappointed, and first of all, I came here to take the three points, but the match was not going in our favor. Then we decided that, okay, let’s take the one point. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the one point again.”
He went on to say that although he was aware Zambia would be a formidable opponent, he was pleased of his boys for their fierce fight.
“It was a very tough match. Once again, the boys put up a very brave fight. We did all our best, but we couldn’t get the results [we wanted]. At the end of the day, we lost it, but all is not lost. I’m happy that the boys put up a very good fight today.”
“Fourth official and match commissioner disturbed our plan”- Amidu
Amidu also expressed his displeasure with how the fourth match official handled the game, accusing him of distracting his technical bench when they wanted to make substitutions, which was their plan to manage the game.
“You know the first half we conceded the goal, but we tried and came back. In the second half we conceded another goal, but we fought again and came back. We were trying to manage the game when we got an obstruction from the fourth match official and the match commissioner about taking out players and putting in some players. So we got disrupted in that place, but all the same, I don’t like talking about referees. The boys [Leone Stars], I think, did a very good job.”
It is understood that Sierra Leone’s final two substitutes were told to wait before going in as action was not stopped for the substitutions to be made but Amidu believes that disturbed their game management plan towards the dying minutes of the match.
To his dismay, his replacements, Yeami Dubai and Mustapha Bundu, came on after Zambia had taken the lead again in the 86th minute, replacing Kargbo and Alison’s Koroma.
