Get To Know Seychelles
Seychelles is an island republic in the Africa Continent. The country is one of the World's smallest countries. It's located in the Western part of the Indian ocean, about 1600km East of Kenya and 1,100km northern of Madagascar with capital at Victoria on the island of Mahe. Seychelles Republic is made up of about 115 islands which are divided into the Mehe and Coralline group.
Official language is English and French.
Seychelles Population is about 95,900. Quite small I must say.
Match Preview
Last Saturday the 17th day of November, in Victoria, Seychelles hosted Libya in an all important match for the Libyans on matchday 5 in Group E for the AFCON qualifiers.
Should I say that Seychelles, the underdogs in the group were so unlucky to face a wounded Libya team who loss two games in a row to the group leader, Nigeria and laying 3rd on the log needed maximum points with a good number of goals in the game, so as to keep their hopes alive.
Seychelles on the other end can only wish to continue in their last home form when they got their first point after four games as they South Africa to a nil-nil draw in front of their home fans.
But that came after they have lost 3 games in a row with a 5-1 to Libya, 0-3 to Nigeria at home and 6-0 to South Africa conceding a total of 14 goals and scoring only 1.
Seychelles didn't expect much from that game since they knew they didn't stand a chance to qualify, but they were playing for pride.
The Humiliation
The Libya team went into the game fresh with load of attacks and it took only 3 minutes into the game when they had a positive result as Sabbou hit the back of the net from close range.
Seychelles try stepping up their game but 18 minutes later Saltou extended the lead and on the 32' he made it 0-3 at half time.
Goals didn't come so early as it was in the first half. On the 56' Almaryami scored the 4th goal
Baleid made it 5 in the 59' and Saltou completed his hat trick journey on the 62' to move the tally to 0-6
Monnaie scored in the 72' for the home team, which was nothing more than a consolation goal.
We thought that the Libyans side has put a stop to their goal rush, but we were wrong as Al Shadi increased the goals tally in the 85' and Elhouni H. Ceiled the victory with a strike at the 90+2' to make it 1-8.
What a humiliation it was in front of the home fans.
Below is the highlight of the goals
Who Are The Players?
Seychelles is not know for their footballing strength as they rock 188 in the FIFA ranking which also make them the lowest ranked in Group E.
Majority of the Seychelles squad are only moonlighting as footballers. Once they are out of the pitch they'll go out their daily business or return to their employers .
Example of sure players include the team captain and defender Bertrand Esther is a Driver
C. Bibi is a messenger and Dave Mussard is a pastry chef( was not enlisted for Libya's game)
The squad earns a combined average of about $ 635 per month.
So the situation on ground makes it difficult for the coach to have a complete team each training session.
To shock us the more, the players are doing this purely out of patriotic fervour without significant recompenses.
The players are not paid, but only get small training allowance, meaning the players represent the national team for free.
Cheer Up
You all have showed great spirit of patriotism so be proud of yourself.
You guys are heroes
Countries like Iceland, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago struggled as you are doing now but with consistency they were able to get to the world stage.
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