Gambia’s poor Performance in CAF U-17 Youth Championship has degenerated into what many consider a blame game directed at mainly the young lads of the squad.
It is not fair to blame the players alone for The Gambia Under-17 team’s failure to perform well in the just concluded CAF U-17 Youth Championship in Rwanda.
We firmly believe that poor coordination and selection of players by the officials, including the coach, are all contributing factors.
It is not fair at all for the team’s head coach Lamin Sambou to continue to launch attack on some of his players when he has failed to realise the coaching staff’s own contribution to the bad story.
We feel that casting blames on the players is very unfair, because the running of any team is a collective responsibility involving the technicians and the players.
We strongly believe that if the technicians, including the coach themselves, had done their work correctly, the results in Rwanda might have been different. The matter now is not a blame game issue but one of self-examination to know where we were weak and strengthen ourselves, as we have more international competitions ahead of us.
In fact, the coaching staff and the technical director of the Gambia Football Association (GFA) have woefully failed to meet the expectations of the nation, so to speak.
After the team’s qualification to Rwanda, the first assignment the coaches should have dealt with is to study the weather condition in Rwanda before choosing any country for a training camp.
Those who know Egypt fully well know that around November to December the country is extremely cold.
Buba Jallow, aka Meles, should not be blamed for the poor performance of the team in Rwanda.
The fundamental question we want to ask is that, what was the role of the GFA technical director, Mr Kebba Masaneh Ceesay, during the U-17 woeful performance in Rwanda?
People who were keenly following the CAF Youth Championship would attest to the fact that any time the Gambian team lost a match during the tournament in Rwanda, the coach would always find excuse for the defeat.
It was also sad to hear the recent comments made by the team’s head coach that in the event he is sacked because of the poor performance of the U-17 he would go back to the farm, because he is a farmer.
This to us shows that he has a case to answer alongside others.
It is high time for all the relevant authorities of football in the country to go back to the drawing board to address the fundamental problems hindering our football.
