Njogu ends goal drought as Gambia beat Gabon in friendly

Scorpions charismatic forward Njogu Demba scored his second goal in a Gambian shirt as his second half acrobatic strike helped the Gambia senior national team crush a famous 1-nil win over Gabon in yesterday’s friendly match played in Libreville, Gabon, Pointsport has gathered.

The former O.B. Odense striker, who has failed in his attempt to replicate his European goal-scoring success with the Scorpions, has bankrupted his goal drought when he fired home what proved to be the only goal of the contest to take his Scorpions tally to two.

Demba, who decided to switch allegiance to the Gambia after a long pursue, netted his first goal in a Gambian jersey during the Scorpions’ emphatic 3-nil victory at the expense of Liberia in the Africa Nations Cup and World Cup qualifiers in Banjul in 2008.

Since then, he has been involved in almost all the Gambian matches in both the qualifiers and friendly matches but could not duplicate his European scoring run of fine form with O.B. Odense in Denmark. He however managed to end his long term scoring deficiency with the Scorpions much anticipated goal.

The win is the first for the Scorpions who conceded two uninterrupted defeats to Guinea Bissau and Equatorial Guinea prior to yesterday’s friendly encounter, which is part of preparations for September’s qualifiers away to Namibia with Burkina Faso to follow a month later in Banjul.

The Gambia must beat both Namibia and Burkina Faso to boost up their chances of making it to their first ever African Nations Cup finals.

They will however face a huge task when they host unstoppable Burkina Faso in Banjul who only needed a draw to salvage their place in the Nations Cup finals to be co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea next year.

A possible six points in their remaining two matches will add to the three points the Scorpions managed to snatch from Namibia, who they entertained to an emphatic 3-1 defeat in their opener some months ago to have any optimism of a Nations Cup appearance.

Note: Qualification Mode (Orange CAN 2012)

The following teams will be qualified for the final phase of the 2012 ACN:

- The first team of each group.

- The second team of the Group where Togo belongs.

- The two best second teams of ten other groups.

The two best second teams of the group of four will be determined by considering their results with the first and the third of their respective groups without considering their results with the last teams of their groups in order to permit Group F (Burkina Faso, The Gambia and Namibia) to stay in the competition for the two best second teams.

In the case where Group K is reduced to four teams in the course of the competition, only the first team of the group will automatically qualify for the ACN. The second team will have to run for the three best second teams of the group.