By Chigozie Chukwuleta
As the AFCON draws near, the Coach of the Gambia national team, Tom Saintfiet has said that his boys will do well to make the country proud but call for fair expectations from the fans.
Coach Saintfiet who spoke exclusively on phone said that playing in a group with African champions and other big teams will be a huge task for the team that achieved quarter finals in the last AFCON.
“As a team, achieving the quarter finals is fantastic. Now one and half years later we can’t be anymore surprise. Everyone knows the quality of Gambian players. It will be much more difficult to achieve something similar”,
“We are still a small nation, we are still the second lowest ranked team in the FIFA ranking and AFCON. We also have limited resources. We have the ambition to stay as long as possible in the competition”,
“In Gambia, the fans want to be African Champions . We have to be fair. There are so many giants in African football and we can be happy to reach the second round”,
“If you look at the group where we are, African Champions Senegal, Semi finalists of last AFCON Cameroon and both teams played last world cup and Guinea Conakry. It is a group of death, that’s clear. Four teams that played that in last AFCON in one group. If you pass through the group stage, it will be quite unique. It will be very tough”, he said.
“We are the smallest team in FIFA ranking in this group and also the least experience in African cup football. So we need to be well prepared. Our aim is to try to get as much as possible points and hopefully it will be enough to go to the second round and take it from there”,
“Even going to the second round is not easy. We pray that everyone should understand that Senegal and Cameroon are giants. Also Guinea has huge potential and it won’t be easy for us. But we will do our best and stay as long as possible in the African Cup”,
