Scorpions returns home after making history

The Gambia senior national team Tuesday  afternoon returned home from Tunisia after undergoing two successful and impressive international friendly matches against African Nations Cup teams: Angola and Tunisia, respectively who were both using the friendly games in the build-up to the African Cup of Nations, which has already taken a centrestage in Angola over the weekend.

The Gambian side that started the friendly with an impressive one-all draw against the Nations Cup host Angola in Lisbon, Portugal since January 3rd has shown the rest of Africa that they deserved to be in Angola, considering their spectacular performances, thanks to brilliant goals from New England Revolution Midfielder Sainey Nyassi, and Cherno Samba who plays his club football in England, despite missing several key players who have since after their first match against Angola left Scorpions camp for their respective European clubs, namely Mustapha Jarju, Ebrima Sohna, Njogu Demba, among other first team players, leaving Coach Paul Put with the option of relying on the experiences of a few foreign-based stars, as well as few other home-based stars who are making their first senior national team debut, such as Abdou Njie and U-17 graduate, Sanna Nyassi of Seattle Sounders in the Major League Soccer.

But the arrival of two home-based players in the names of striker Pa Amadou Gai and right back Lamin Gibba who both flew to catch up their team mates in Tunis as a possible replacement of some of the departed players was a good option by the Gambia Football Association.

Goalkeeper Pa Dembo Touray who remained the most experienced foreign-based player in Paul Put's side led the Scorpion side to one of its impressive victory in as many friendly international matches with some world class saves before he eventually received his marching order with only five minutes to stoppage time. But the host Tunisia could only manage a consolation close to stoppage time.

This remarkable performance by the Scorpions that went very close to booking a place in the ongoing African Nations Cup in Angola is expected to see a significant improvement on the monthly FIFA rankings.

Seedy Kinteh, who headed the Gambia Football Association for the past four years going into another four year tenure in office as the GFA President revealed plans by the FA to organise a series of friendly matches in their efforts to keep the team busy before the next Nations Cup and the World Cup qualifiers among other qualifying rounds.

Kinteh confirmed this story to Pointsport on Monday.