{"id":20498,"date":"2011-03-09T10:42:08","date_gmt":"2011-03-09T15:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=20498"},"modified":"2011-03-09T10:42:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-09T15:42:08","slug":"swedish-coach-keen-to-stay-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=20498","title":{"rendered":"Swedish coach keen to stay on"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Lars Olof Mattsson is keen to coach Sierra Leone for the remainder of their 2012 African Cup of Nations campaign.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Swedish coach is contracted to take charge of the Leone Stars only for their next game away to Niger on 27 March.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A local cement company will pay the former Sweden under-21 coach $10,000 for his one-off assignment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But the Swede, 56, told BBC Sport that he would like to be around until Sierra Leone&#8217;s final qualifying fixture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m happy to take over and hope to be given the opportunity to be in charge for all the team&#8217;s remaining matches,&#8221; Mattsson said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m aware that the Niger game is important and we must win it to have a chance of qualifying for the finals.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The remaining matches are important too and I&#8217;d like to complete the job instead of leaving the team halfway through the qualifiers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sierra Leone&#8217;s sports minister Paul Kamara told BBC Sport that they too would be happy for Mattsson to stay but for lack of money.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mattsson said he started preparing for the Niger game before travelling to Freetown.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve been following the progress of Sierra Leonean footballers in Scandinavian where I live and other countries in Europe.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve met some of them and have spoken on the phone to the players in Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Rodney Strasser with AC Milan in Italy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Most of the players are young and that&#8217;s good for the Leone Stars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mattsson is the second Swede to coach the Leone Stars after Roger Palmgren who guided the team to the 1996 African Cup of Nations finals in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sierra Leone currently lie third in qualifying Group G behind South Africa and Niger, after draws against Egypt in Cairo and South Africa at home.<\/p>\n<p><em>By Mohamed Fajah Barrie<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Stay wityh Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lars Olof Mattsson is keen to coach Sierra Leone for the remainder of their 2012 African Cup of Nations campaign. The Swedish coach is contracted [&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":[7285,7286,1476,7287,5191,5492],"class_list":["post-20498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-2012-african-cup-of-nations-campaign","tag-lars-olof-mattsson","tag-leone-stars","tag-mattsson","tag-sierra-leone-footballers","tag-sierra-leone-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20498","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=20498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20498\/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=20498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}