The final whistle at the Mustapha Tchaker Stadium reflected one reality, and the scorpions are losing more fans, there is no reason to believe among football enthusiasts. Salt was added to their wounds when they heard Burundi, Namibia and even Guinea Bissau will go to Egypt.
When will the Gambia qualifying trend?
Amongst the few echoes people believe Tom Saintfiet who is not a popular figure when it comes to team selection nor a saint when it comes tactics, contract shouldn’t be extended beyond the end of the month. Tom like his employees is very obsessed with personal records. They build on strong arguments for not losing a match, but that does not interest the Gambia. The Gambia wants performances that can be built upon, and in all five games that Tom was in charge left more questions than answers.
The Gambia’s biggest strength is their offensive third, but we have seen it in both home and away matches Tom Saintfiet will set up defensively and pray to mother luck, everytime we attack, we are rewarded with a goal therefore Why don’t we attack?
Countries that have previously made it to AFCONS and this year’s debutant have put in character, proper vision, great personnel, the believe and both governments and private sectors chipped in morally and financially. Whereas the Gambia lack all of the above. Failure to match countries in our sub-region will make us lose ground because we won’t be able to even play friendly matches with them.
Some positive from the Algeria match includes we have a good average age group of players. Especially when Atalanta based, midfielder Ebrima Colley replaced Ebrima Sohna. The future is bright, the key question is how are we are going to manage them and give them the mechanism? I wouldn’t call it rebuilding and rebranding but will say a transition. Take an example of Brazil, Italy, Holland, Cameroon, Uganda, AC Milan, Mauritania have all gone for tough changes and It work out for them.
Just over the weekend I saw Salif Diao returned to Anfield for Liverpool foundation match. What I want to highlight is we don’t have the luxury to lose Ebrima Sohna. Whenever he retires from international football, he should be among the technicians. It serves as a motivation and his experience will help. Most countries assistant coaches are former national team. If we were cursed for not having Biri Biri Njie, Bai Omar Samba, George Lobba around our national team we can’t overlook the need to have Ebrima Sohna working with the incoming coach.
It’s a pity that the stakeholders won’t have an access to the technical report of Tom Saintfiet’s match against Algeria. Whatever the case is, we all have responsibilities to put measures to make the Gambia qualify. The federation can no longer work behind closed doors when matters of national interest is concerned.
As Ebou Jagne rightly said “Gambian Football is heading in the wrong direction. A huge reshape is needed. What I mean is that, Gambian Football Federation should be led by personnels with Footballing Knowledge. We got talented players inside and outside of The Gambia. One thing that needs to stop is being bias; to make sure that our Football progresses, we need to select based on talent and hard work. Putting our differences for the good of Gambian Football. It is disheartening to see country likes Guinea Bissau, Burundi, and Mauritania qualifying for African Nations Cup while the Gambia is regressing. Few questions need to be asked; what needs to be done differently? Is there a competency problem? What is the long-term vision? These are few questions we need to answer.”
