By Ibrahim Karim Bangura (Tanko)

Born 10 January 1995, Mohamed Buya Turay, is a 26-year-old Sierra Leonean professional footballer who currently plays in the Chinese Super League Chinese as a center-forward for Henan Songshan. He has made six appearances for the Sierra Leone national team, Leone Stars.

Like most Sierra Leonean kids, Buya started his footballing career on the streets of Freetown where he was reportedly spotted by the local club, FC Mattia. Turay would later start attracting interests from clubs in Guinea and Nigeria which subsequently led to his first trials in Europe.

Unfortunately, the trials were unsuccessful as he could not impress the management at the Swedish tier-3 club Vasalunds IF. They thought “he was not good enough”

But Buya kept pushing until he was signed in 2014 by Juventus IF, a tier-5 Swedish club that later merged into IFK Stoocksunds in 2016.

Since then Buya has steadily risen through the ranks. Between 2014 and 2018, he played for four different clubs, mostly in the Swedish tier-2 league. His real first major international breakthrough came in 2018 when he was signed by Belgian Jupiler Pro League side Sint-Truiden.

The deal was reportedly worth €1.80m. He was loaned to Djurgarden FC in 2019 before finally been sold to Chinese Super League side HB FC in 2020.

He left HB FC in April, 2021 to join his current side HN S. Longmen in a two-year deal that cost around €1.50m.

Back home, Turay is considered a hero, perhaps not really because of his footballing exploits, but for his big heart out of the field. He is widely known and loved for his humanitarian strides in support of youths and children. However, Turay scored in the international friendly against Somalia.