Inter Milan back on the Saul Marreh trail Tuesday, October 14, 2014 18 times Italian champions Inter Milan is said to be back on the chase to secure the signature of Gambian international and Granada CF midfielderSulayman Marreh Observer Sports can report. According to football transfer website, Tribalfootball, the 20 year-old’s progress has reached Inters football chiefs and the Lombardy based club is said to have made contact with Marrehs camp with the view to tempting him to Italy in 2015. The online publication added that the Granada management is resigned to eventually selling Marreh should his rapid development continue, and Inter, the only club to have spent its entire history in the top flight of Italian football, since the league’s inception in 1929/30, is leading the chase despite interest from unnamed European clubs. Sulayman has been promoted into the Granada CF first team for the 2014/15 Spanish top flight football season but is yet to make an appearance for the first team as he plays with the reserves in the Segunda B, an equivalent of the third tier in the Spanish football pyramid. Sulayman was in the past linked with a move to the 7 times Italian Cup winners and 15 months ago, the former Samger player had a medical with the 3 times European champions, after impressing scouts of the team during the 8-team Umbria international football tournament of 2012 won by the Gambia U-19 team. Marreh who is limited to only a solitary appearance with the Granada reserves as a result of injury scored three goals in that tournament. Speaking in an Observer Sports interview last year, the versatile player confirmed Inter’s interest in his signature at the time. “As I am speaking, Inter Milan is interested in me, that is what I was told [but I] just have to put my fingers crossed and see what happens. Our head of delegation Sulayman Joof relayed the information to me [that Inter are interested in me], and I even talked with the scout himself, but I don’t want to talk about what we spoke for now, just want to keep my fingers crossed until all is done, I can start talking,” the young sensation told Observer Sports at the time. He added: “I don’t know about that [trial] but what they told me was that, I should be going there for a medical, that’s all they told me for now but I don’t know. The medical will be conducted [in Italy] soon enough.” The day Marreh came off age Sulayman Marreh’s rise to prominence started in that Italian tournament but it was on the 8th of June 2013 when he actually came off age. It was the day he gave a man-of-the-match performance against a star-studded Ivory Coast side in Banjul despite a 3-0 defeat against the Elephants in the penultimate round of Brazil 2014 World Cup qualifiers. Marreh had already made his international debut for the Scorpions before that game and featured against the highest ranked side in Africa in Abidjan earlier in the qualifiers but to think that he had played only two full seasons in the domestic Gambian first division league with Samger, and went out to put up that convincing performance was just unthinkable at the time. He dominated the likes of Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure, Chiekh Tiote of New Castle United amongst other Ivorian stars. Marreh was spotted by the eagle eyes of the Gambia U-17 technicians as they launched a nationwide campaign to spot new talents that will form the team to defend the Baby Scorpions triumph in the 2011 African Championship in Rwanda. Marreh was at that time playing with Abuko United - joining a domestic first division team to boost his development and chances of making the Rwanda squad. When Marreh was asked to choose the team he would want to join, he settled for Samger much to the delight of its head coach Jane Joof, who at the time was also part of the U-17 technical set up. “He was asked to choose a first division team to play for and he decided on Samger. He said Samger was the team that he always wanted to play for since he was a child because of the way the team is set up and our youth scheme had also appealed to him,” Jane Joof told the Daily Observer last year. Zokora, Belhanda recognise Marreh’s talent Bonu Johnson gave him his international debut in the first round of the 2013 African Cup of Nations qualifiers return leg in Algeria where the home side secured a convincing 4-1 win. He has been one of the key players of the team ever since and went on to make a second half appearance against the Elephants at the Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny when he replaced Momodou Ceesay in the 46th minute. “We had a tough game but we won. The number six [Sulayman Marreh] of Gambia was just great and I think Gambia has a good team of youngsters,” Didier Zokora, who amongst several other clubs featured for the likes of Sevilla, Tottenham Hotspur and St Etienne in France, said of Marreh at a post-match press conference. Despite another defeat to Morocco in a World Cup qualifier, the Atlas Lions French born midfielder Younes Belhanda went all the way to the Scorpions’ dressing room to congratulate the starlet on another sparkling performance in Casablanca. Belhanda who was stunned by the performance of the youngster gave him some very encouraging words at the time. Author: Baboucarr Camara
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 17:18:04 +0000