It’s sad because we play in Europe – every Guinea player plays in Europe. And when they find out that we’re from Guinea, an Ebola country, everyone forgets that we came from Europe to play. Every time we tried to set up the training camp in a country, when the Guinea federation went there to set it up, a lot of countries said, “no, no, no, we don’t want you in our country”. When we went to Uganda, they said we were only allowed to bring 25 people. We had to leave five players at home, because we were not allowed to bring more than 25 people, and we had to bring coaches and staff from the federation. But when they came to play us in Morocco, we didn’t try to make it difficult for them, we just left it – as we knew we were going to win.
How was it playing in Morocco? Was it difficult with not so many fans there?
A lot of people from Guinea live in Morocco actually, so we had a lot of people come to the games. We had a good support. And some people from Senegal and other West African countries came to support us, because we play away, so we had many people come to watch us. It wasn’t like a home game. We would prefer to play at home in front of 30,000 people, but when we played in Morocco there still about 5000 people watching us. And the opposition only had two or three fans, which helped.
Were any of your teammates families affected by Ebola back in Guinea?
No I don’t think so. All of our teammates have family back in Conakry – the capital – and they are very good at stopping the spread of Ebola here. They wash their hands and take care of themselves, and are doing everything to stop Ebola coming to the capital.
Lass Bangoura wasn’t allowed to join up from his club side Rayo Vallecano because of Ebola…
I wasn’t in the national team then because I was injured, but I spoke to the coach about what happened. He wasn’t part of the squad who was called up for the game, but rather just went to the game to spend time with the national team. His club called him up and said, “where are you?”. He said, “I’m with the national team”. But they told him that he was not allowed to be there, because we was not on the list of played called-up for the squad, so he flew back to Spain.
How did your coach deal with it all? Was he a strong leader?
Oh yes, yes, he was very good. He lives in Guinea for a long time now, and knows so many players from Guinea. He always tries to play good football on the pitch. I think he’s one of the best coaches in Africa.