Hearing fans of the opposing side taunt and jeer is nothing new for the Leone Stars, Sierra Leone's national soccer team.
Hearing them chant "Ebola" is.
As is the hesitancy of opposing players to shake hands or swap jerseys at the end of the match, as well as the now-commonplace rigorous medical testing they are forced to undergo before each game.
"You feel humiliated, like garbage, and you want to punch someone," John Trye, a reserve goalkeeper, said after hearing "Ebola" shouted at the players during a training session Thursday. "No one wants to have Ebola in their country. Sierra Leone is struggling. And they shove it in our face. That's not fair."
The team, seeking shelter in a Cameroon hotel ahead of an important match on Saturday, had the police called on them when guests, discovering the country they represented, grew alarmed and afraid.
In July, the Seychelles forfeited a match against the Stars on the suggestion of the Seychelles Ministry of Health.
"I would like to state that the Seychelles FA lays no blame at the feet of the Sierra Leone FA for this. We have taken the decision because of the advice sent to us by the Seychelles Ministry of Health," said Seychelles Football Association president Elvis Chetty.
Sierra Leone was barred from boarding a connecting flight in Nairobi, Kenya that would have brought them to the match.
"We also received a letter from the Ministry of Immigration saying it would not allow the Sierra Leone team to enter our jurisdiction. They are asking us to postpone the game for an indefinite period, so we feel it is right to forfeit now rather than drag it out."
In August, African soccer officials barred the team from playing in its home country as a precautionary measure, forcing them to play on the road continually as they attempt to qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, the continent's biennial championship.
Ahead of two games in five days against Cameroon, players must submit at breakfast and dinner to temperature screenings for Ebola, even though none play professionally in Sierra Leone or have traveled to the country since July. After last month's match in Congo, some players were screened four times in a single day as they attempted to return to their club teams in Europe and the United States.
Despite the demeaning treatment and derisive indignities, the Leone Stars will continue to play.
"We have this problem of Ebola," John Jeboh Sherrington, the technical director of Sierra Leone's soccer federation, said to the players in the dressing room. "We cannot add another problem by refusing to play."
