Lone Star finally begins camping in Ghana

Trains on artificial turf

Lone Star players in training with Coach Kaetu Smith (first right) in charge on Friday morning

Super Eagles opponents in next weekend's second leg of the Cup African Nations qualifier, Lone Star of Liberia arrived in Ghana to begin camping on Friday morning, we can authoritatively confirm. 

The Liberian contingent left Monrovia on Thursday night and arrived in Accra at about 9PM local time and was driven to the Red Bull Academy camping site that is about 90 minutes drive away from the Ghanaian capital.

The 26-man delegation was led by technical director, Henry Browne and Coach Keatu Smith, 13 players, a doctor, media representatives, referee Jerry Yekeh and support staff. The team had its first training session on Friday morning at one of the pitches at the Red Bull Academy.

Interestingly, the Academy has only artificial turfs with which Lone Star is training even though the UJ Esuene Stadium, venue of the match has a grass pitch.

Just like the Super Eagles that train twice a day, the team had another training in the evening and had two more on Saturday. The team will depart for Niamey on Sunday October 7 to play the Menas on Monday after which it will return to Accra on Tuesday to continue training. 

Brown said of the match with Niger: “It will be a crucial friendly match for both countries and we will use that match to test our patterns for the Liberia, Nigeria game.”

A local media source in Liberia attributes the delay in Lone Star's camping plans to logistics problems. 

"The team finally left yesterday (Thursday) after 4 day of postponement, due to technical and administrative reasons," it said.