The
Gambia’s senior national team, the Scorpions, has got another coach to take the
country’s football national squad to the Promised Land.
This time around it is a son of the soil – Sang Ndong, who is no stranger to the Gambian football campaign.
Sang Ndong has been appointed for the third time as National Coach. He was first appointed in 1993 and served until 1995. The second time he was appointed was in 1999 and served until 2003.
Now he is serving his third term for a period of two years.
Sang, it has to be noted, has a big challenge ahead of him: to rebuild and rebrand the team for progress and major successes, seeing we have big games ahead of us, with more to be faced in the course of his two-year contract.
In doing so, he needs both financial and moral support, especially prayers. It should, however, be noted that Rome was not built in a day; hence we need patience and perseverance, as we wait to see him and the boys give us the desired results.
It is also essential that more friendly matches are conducted to upgrade our standard of football, and Sang, knowing what football is, is expected to go down this lane.
A compatriot and a son of the soil, Sang Ndong has good qualifications in coaching, especially from his various studies and training in Brazil, the United Kingdom and Egypt. He, therefore, needs support as he takes on the mantle of equipping the boys with the necessary skills, tactics and strategies to achieve the desired results for the nation.
It is also good to note that many African countries are now encouraging their local coaches to take charge of the national squad. This is good not only for the fact that it cuts costs, but also because in most cases better results are attained with homegrown coaches, as they know better the players they deal with.
In the case of Sang, he would know how to select the players to get them perform well in their right positions.
Another fact that needs to be taken home is that football is no longer leisure, but business; the more you invest the more you get better results.
Football brings into many countries foreign exchange, and promotes countries to be well known around the world. That in itself is a national marketing for attracting potential international investments into the country.
Therefore, football should be taken seriously and promoted from the grassroots level.
We need to encourage the establishment of more academies to develop football countrywide; we also need to recruit retired footballers of the national team for national coaching tasks.
Sang should note that to raise our standard of football, Gambia or the Scorpions should work hard to enter into all international competitions, both at junior and senior levels.
We should also beef up our national clubs to participate in African Club Championships.
Since our clubs have no money to really spur rapid progress of the teams to be able to enter into international competitions, they should be assisted by the government and the business community.
Football needs resources as without resources there will be no success.
Sang should be encouraged and given all the facilities that we used to give to others.He needs both the support of the media and football fans in The Gambia.
“Sang should be encouraged and given all the facilities that we used to give to others.“
The Point
