By Baboucarr Camara, Team Media Officer
The Gambia made further history today by qualifying to the last eight of the Africa Cup of Nations following a 1-0 defeat of Guinea Conakry in Bafoussam, Cameroon.
Bologna forward Musa Barrow scored the game’s only goal after latching onto a defence-splitting pass from Yusupha Barrow and fend off the challenge of a sea of Guinean defenders, turning the ball with his right and stabbing it into the net with his left foot.
Barrow is one of the best players in this tournament and following a man-of-the-man performance in the opener against Mauritania, and earned a deserved place in the CAF Team of the Group Stages, the former Hawks protégé was again voted by the tournament’s technical advisory board as the most valuable player in this historic win.
The smallest country on mainland Africa, Tom Saintfiet’s charges entered into their debut campaign in the competition as the lowest ranked side at 150. The Scorpions began in the preliminary stages were they only secured a place in the qualifying proper following a gruesome post-match penalty shootout defeat of Djibouti in Banjul and went on to top their qualifying group that also consisted of Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.
They will again begin their quest for back-to-back appearances at Ivory Coast 2023 in the preliminaries in March after they were drawn with Chad, as one of the 12 lowest African ranked sides in the world. But the irony of it is that when they take to the field against Cameroon in Douala in the quarterfinals on Saturday, they’ll be doing so as one of the eight best teams in the continent.
The Gambia came into this tie having to battle all sorts of issues from the controversy surrounding our accommodation at the Hotel La Vallee de Bana, to three players and some staff having to battle food poisoning. The trio of players were so sick that two of them had to pull out of the starting 11 minutes before kick-off.
Noah Sonko had to be infused with drips by the Team Doctor, while Saidy Janko and Ibou Touray were so weak that they were forced to pull out of the team entirely, the latter barely 20 minutes before kick-off. Buba Sanneh couldn’t also train for two days while Ebou Adams was nursing a shoulder injury and is still awaiting medical clearance to return to training.
The situation aggravated after an hour into the game when star player Ablie Jallow limped off injured but this Scorpion side has absolutely no regard for reputation and do not know when they’re beaten. Instead, a move that started with captain Pa Modou Jagne (who was only included in the team because of the serious misfortunes) passed to Bobb who released Barrow for the game’s only goal.
Perhaps, the only blemish on an otherwise perfect Scorpion night is the sending off of Yusupha Njie, barely 15 minutes into his AFCON debut, with two harshly awarded yellow cards. He will therefore miss the next match.
The next step is against the hosts on Saturday and playing against them, the Scorpions may be forced to overcome even more challenges if they’re to secure a place in the last four of the competition. But as Saintfiet told his players in his final address before kick-off against Guinea, no matter the misfortunates, setbacks and the circumstances, this group of players are determined to make further history.
