The Gambia begins its quest for a second AFCON appearance with a 1-0 defeat of South Sudan on Saturday.
As one of 26 African countries who are playing away from home after their stadiums were banned for failing to meet CAF standards, The Gambia hosted the South Sudanese at Senegal’s Stade Lat Dior in Thies and it took Ablie Jallow’s toe-poked effort three minutes into first half stoppage time, following a Musa Barrow assist, to win all three points.
Tom Saintfiet’s Gambia was the darling of the African continent when, against all the odds, it reached the quarterfinals of the African Cup of Nations in Cameroon earlier this year. Starting from the preliminaries, this historic Scorpions secured us our first ever competitive victory away from home with a 3-1 come-from-behind win in Angola in 2019 on their way to winning a group that also consisted of DR Congo and Gabon.
In Cameroon, they became the first AFCON finalists to win their opening game since Equatorial Guinea as hosts in 2012 with a 1-0 defeat of Mauritania in Limbe. This was followed by a 1-1 draw with Mali before a final group stage 1-0 win over Tunisia preceded an identical scoreline victory over Guinea in the last 16 in Bafoussam.
Ahead of the beginning of the 2023 qualifiers, the team camped in the United Arab Emirates for a week where they played a 1-1 draw with the hosts last Sunday, the very first time in Gambian football history that our National Team secured a result against a non-African opposition, having lost all previous encounters of such.
Mali ended match day one on top after thumping Congo Brazzaville 4-0 in Bamako. Now the Scorpions will depart for Brazzaville in the early hours of Sunday morning for the second Group G game on Wednesday, where we’ll play away to the home side, while South Sudan host Mali in Uganda.
