The poor performance of our girls in their opening game at the FIFA women’s U-17 World Cup in Baku against Korea DPR in their first-ever appearance at the World Cup on Saturday was discouraging.
The Gambian girls were beaten 11-0 in the World Cup opener, which was very bad for the country that is out to make history.
The fundamental question that every one is asking is what must have gone wrong, leading to the very poor performance of our girls.
Korea DPR have treated our girls like kids making many Gambians worried about their future matches, against the USA on September 25 in their second game, and later with France on September 29.
Looking at the performance of our girls in the qualifying rounds, they did very well and impressed the entire country.
However, we must stress that with their first poor performance at the current tournament, the country needs to do more preparation in future.
Such preparations would include developing our national female leagues and committing more financial resources to female football.
Last minute support cannot take us anywhere; thus the need to come out at the right time to support our girls.
More training is also required on the side of the team, as well as looking for ideal places for their camping.
While we appreciate the efforts of the sports authorities in having a ten-day camp for the team in Morocco, we have realised that Morocco where they had test matches is not the right camping venue for the girls, considering the composition of team that they were to meet, especially in their opening matches with Asian, America and European teams.
We hope that when they return, the team and their officials would brainstorm on their Baku experience and map the way forward for the team.