The senior national team captain, Omar Colley was speaking during the post-match press conference held at the Stade Lat Dior in Thies, Senegal, on Saturday after The Gambia beat South Sudan 1-0 during their first Afcon qualifiers Group G game.
“The goal of the team is to go to the next Afcon tournament, even though pressure is part of football. We have to play game by game. We are still humble and we are still The Gambia (a small country). This is why we always respect our opponents,” he further said.
According to him, they are team Gambia and not Senegal or Algeria even though they qualified for the last Afcon tournament and reached the quarterfinals.
Captain Colley, who plays his club football in the Italian Serie A for Sampdoria, added that reaching the Afcon quarterfinals does not mean they are number one in Africa. “We are still The Gambia and are still growing.”
“Obviously, we feel a little bit of pressure because we did very well in the last Afcon. We want to go to the next one and make more history for The Gambia. Pressure is part of football but at the same time we know ourselves and know what we want to do.”
Asked about how he feels to be favorites with the expectation to be back in the Afcon tournament, he said, “I do not think we are favorites, with due respect to South Sudan. We have seen how they played.”
He continued: “The last Afcon qualification we played against Djibouti, we struggled. We beat Angola and Gabon and made it to the Afcon without being favourites. This is African football and every country has its own moments. So I think this is our moment, this is why we always want to get a positive result when playing at home.”
