{"id":18757,"date":"2011-01-26T09:10:25","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T14:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=18757"},"modified":"2011-01-26T09:10:25","modified_gmt":"2011-01-26T14:10:25","slug":"sierra-leone-hires-swedens-mattsson-as-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=18757","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Leone hires Sweden&#8217;s Mattsson as coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Sierra Leone&#8217;s new Sports Minister says Swedish  coach Lars Olof Mattsson has been hired to manage the Leone Stars on a  temporary basis.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The 56-year-old Mattsson is a former coach of the Swedish national Under-21 team.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sports Minister Paul Kamara said Mattsson will only be in charge for Leone Stars&#8217; next match against Niger.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Mattsson will only be here for our next 2012 African Cup of Nations qualifiers,&#8221; Kamara told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;But  after the game we&#8217;ll try to enter into an agreement with someone to  take over the Leone Stars on a permanent basis,&#8221; he continued.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Minister Kamara said hiring Mattsson on a short-term basis is a wise move.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;We  decided to go for a Swedish coach because most of our foreign-based  footballers are in Scandinavia and it&#8217;ll be easier for him to reach them  at their clubs,&#8221; he stated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;That way he&#8217;ll see their performances even before he comes down to Freetown to take up his job,&#8221; Kamara continued.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Coach  Mattsson will work with local coach Christian Cole who was in charge of  the Leone Stars for their last two matches in the Nations Cup  qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Leone Stars pulled off impressive draws against  reigning champions Egypt in Cairo and South Africa&#8217;s Bafana Bafana in  Freetown.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The team is currently third in group G with two points  from two matches, behind South Africa and Niger, but ahead of the  Pharaohs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Coach Cole for his part has told BBC Sport that he  welcomes the Swedish coach with open hands and is ready to work with him  to get a good result against Niger.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The assignment is Mattsson&#8217;s first in Africa.<\/p>\n<p><em>By Mohammed Fajah Barrie                                                                            , BBC Sport, Freetown<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sierra Leone&#8217;s new Sports Minister says Swedish coach Lars Olof Mattsson has been hired to manage the Leone Stars on a temporary basis. The 56-year-old [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[824,1],"tags":[6658,2346,6659,5383,6367,5191,5492,6043],"class_list":["post-18757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-2012-african-cup-of-nations","tag-christian-cole","tag-lars-olof-mattson","tag-leon-stars","tag-paul-kamara","tag-sierra-leone-footballers","tag-sierra-leone-news","tag-sierra-leone-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}