Mohamed Buya Turay, who starts on the opposite flank from Bundu, also spent time at the academy while 11 of the squad worked under McKinstry at some level.īundu left for England in September 2014, beginning a scholarship at Hartpury college in Gloucestershire, and quickly blazed a trail through the university football scene. Bellamy was not in it for profit: he had genuinely been trying to help and the national team is reaping the benefits. It closed in 2016 and its finances were later investigated, but that had nothing to do with the work undertaken on the ground. The 2014 ebola outbreak caused football in Sierra Leone to shut down and it brought about the academy’s demise, too. His nickname was “Baller”: a gentle, caring giant whose unassuming nature belied the steely edge required to progress. Another recalls that, after a poor week of training, a frustrated Bundu insisted on being given the captain’s armband and subsequently scored six goals in his next game. One of Bundu’s coaches remembers how, as he prepared to travel home from Sierra Leone, he found the player had got up at 3am to see him off. “Not only football-wise: we were taught how to be proper human beings.” “It was a massive four years in my life,” Bundu says of his time there under the guidance of Johnny McKinstry, who would later manage the national team, and a group of young British coaches including Tom Legg and Paul Westren. The son of a successful local coach, he came through “six or seven trials” to be one of the initial 16-strong intake at the Craig Bellamy Foundation’s academy, which was set up by the former Wales international after he visited the country and was affected by its struggle to recover from the civil war that caused horrific grief during the 1990s and beyond. Photograph: Lars Ronbog/FrontzoneSport/Getty Imagesīundu’s path has been unique. Mustapha Bundu currently plays at Danish Superliga side AGF Aarhus on loan from Anderlecht. Sierra Leone had played only 15 games in the past five years before this tournament and this year’s selection, coached by the former Walsall player John Keister, have had scant time together. A London-born contingent includes the ex-Chelsea scholar Kevin Wright, Osman Kakay of QPR, Wycombe’s Sullay Kaikai and their biggest-name recruit, the one-time Tottenham defender Steven Caulker, who made his debut in the Algeria game. The goalkeeper Mohamed Kamara, named man of the match against Algeria, plays for East End Lions in the impoverished local league and cried upon receiving his award. A lot of people probably didn’t know about us but now they can see we have talented footballers.”Īn eclectic squad all have stories to tell. Our goal is to be here, compete and cause an upset, not just to take part. “People expected us to lose 4-0 or 5-0 but we went and stood up against them. “We all received hundreds of videos of people back home celebrating,” Bundu says of the reaction to Monday’s game. But they held the champions, Algeria, to a deserved goalless draw in their opener and there is no reason to think the Elephants cannot at least be similarly troubled in Douala. That is a remarkable billing in itself: Sierra Leone had not qualified for the tournament since 1996 with conflict, ebola and chaotic governance all intervening to varying degrees. On Sunday he will start on the right wing for Sierra Leone against Ivory Coast in a match that could seal his team’s place in the Africa Cup of Nations knockout stage. Internet sensations come and go with dizzying frequency nowadays but Bundu, who was 15 at the time, has lasted the course.
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