As part of preparations for the 2018 CHAN qualifiers, which gets underway in July, the Gambia’s local based National Team will play two friendly international matches with their counterparts from Morocco in Banjul. The matches will be played at the Independence Stadium on Friday March 24 and Sunday March 26.
The Gambian team will be led by Foday Bah of Wallidan and Abdoulie Bojang of Steve Biko in the absence of the CHAN Team Coach Alhagie Sarr who is currently preparing his Gambia Ports Authority team in the second and deciding leg of their CAF Champions League qualifiers.
As part of preparations for the games, both Bah and Bojang today met with officials of The Gambia Football Federation at Football House in Kanifing. The tacticians have already drawn up a provisional squad of 30 players who will begin training at the National Technical Training Centre in Yundum tomorrow, Thursday, March 16, 2017. They will again train on Friday after which they will take a break to return to respective clubs for the weekend’s league matches.
The team will then resume training on Monday at the Independence Stadium where they will continue to train for the remaining days of their preparations. The team is expected to go to camp on Thursday March 23.
It would be recalled that The Gambia has been drawn against Mali in the first round of the CHAN qualifiers. The first game would be played in Banjul on the weekend of the 14, 15 and 16 of July, with the return leg a week later in Bamako. The winner over the two legs will face either Mauritania or Liberia for a place in Kenya 2018.