Barely 24 hours to their African Cup of Nations qualifying clash in Freetown, coach of the Sierra Leone national team Lars Olof Mattsson and his Tunisian counterpart Sami Trabelsi are already engaged in some off pitch battle.

The Tunisia coach after their Wednesday's training workout in Tunis said his team is physically or technically better than the Leone Stars. "This match (against Sierra Leone) is against a team that is not better than us either physically or technically," Trabelsi told the Tunisian press. And in reply, Sierra Leone's Swedish coach, Lars Olof Mattsson said he is ready to show Trabelsi how good his team is.

In a smiling mood, coach Mattsson said: "Well his comment is fine but we will show him how good our team is and I will say to him welcome to Freetown."

Coach Trabelsi, who put his players through their paces in Wednesday's workout, said there are few defensive issues he needed to work on ahead of Saturday clash. "We have been together for a while; the players have been playing together for some time now. There are things we can improve in like ball possession and creating chances, and we have some defensive issues. I think we can improve from one match to another."

Coach Mattsson on the other hand said: "We can beat them here but the good thing also is you don't need to beat an opponent to qualify but you just have to be clever. We can even have a goalless draw here and get a score draw in Tunis for the return leg then we can book our qualification spot."