The reporter reported coldly Chengdu Rongcheng signed foreign player Issa Caron in the winter window is likely to be selected for the Sierra Leone national team again during the March international break. It will mean a lot to him if he is selected this time, as he will be reunited with his uncle Muhammad Karon. The latter, who was appointed as the coach of the Sierra Leone national team on February 14, has started training with 25 players in the local league this week, and the official squad for the national team will be announced later, perhaps under the name of his nephew Issa Caron, who plays in the Chinese Super League.

Mohamed Cuarón was well-known at the turn of the century, having played for European powerhouses such as Inter Milan and Monaco, and was known for playing as a striker in the No.3 shirt that is common for defenders. The elder Caron has a lot of ties to Chinese football, and in July 2005 he was loaned by Saudi giants Jeddah United at a high price, scoring in five knockout games in a row, scoring a total of six goals for Jeddah United to win the AFC Champions League. In the second leg of the quarterfinals at home against Shandong Luneng, Jeddah United won 7-2, and Caron scored his first goal to join the team. In 2010, Caron joined Shaanxi Chanba, who moved from Shanghai to Xi'an, with an annual salary of reportedly $1 million, the highest salary in the Chinese Super League that year.

While still playing in June 2014, the elder Caron Sr. was appointed coach of Sierra Leone's Under-17 national team. After retiring in 2016, he focused on his investment in the club Caron. Back in 2002, at the age of 23, Cuarón bought a club in his hometown for $30,000 and named it after his surname. Four years later, the team won the Sierra Leone league and cup double and qualified for the African Champions League.

This time, Mohamed Caron took over as the coach of the national team, and five of the first local training camps were from the Caron club. Caron wants to scout domestic players before recruiting overseas players who make up two-thirds of the national team. Nephew Issa Caron, who plays for Chengdu Rongcheng, has made nine previous international appearances, having been selected in the final squad for the AFCAP twice in a row in last year's Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, and is also a promising selection this time.

The hiring of the elder Caron as national team coach is part of the Sierra Leone Football Federation's "Concept 2027" strategy, which aims to establish Sierra Leone as a powerhouse in Africa through various initiatives. After Sierra Leone missed out on the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations finals last November, Mohamed Karon is the biggest favorite for the new coach as Sierra Leone's greatest all-time star.

Cuarón has a three-year contract and aims to qualify for the 2026 World Cup and the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations finals. At present, after four rounds of Group A of the African World Cup qualifiers, Sierra Leone is in fourth place with five points, only one point away from second-place Guinea-Bissau, and there is still hope of entering the play-offs.

Caron is not the first Chinese Super League player to coach the national team, after the departure of North Korea's first foreign coach Anderson in the summer of 2018, the 35-year-old Kim Yongjun became the acting coach and led the team to the 2019 Asian Cup. Kim Yongjun played for Chengdu Sheffield United in 2008, and before that, Kim Yongjun was an assistant coach for North Korea's Under-17 and Under-23 youth teams, becoming the youngest coach of the 24 teams in the Asian Cup that year. However, the North Korean team lost three consecutive games in the group stage of the Asian Cup, and Kim Yongjun was also dismissed.

In November 2021, veteran coach Tabarez, who had coached Uruguay for 15 years, stepped down, and was succeeded by Uruguayan foreign player Diego Alonso, who played for Shanghai Shenhua in 2007. However, at the end of 2022, the Uruguay team in the Qatar World Cup stopped in the group stage, and Alonso could only resign.

In addition, before 2017, Dalian Shide foreign player Jankovic briefly coached the Thai U23 national Olympic team, and the Bulgarian stepped down at the beginning of 2018.At the end of 2021, Mascherano, who had played for Hebei Huaxia Happiness, became the coach of the Argentine U20 national youth team, but he had a poor record in the South American U20 Youth Championship and missed the U20 World Youth Championship. Although Argentina succeeded Indonesia to host the 2023 World Junior Championships and was lucky to qualify for the finals as the host, it still stopped in the round of 16. Last year's Paris Olympics, the Argentine Olympic team stopped in the quarterfinals, and Mascherano left the team.