National team coach Jonathan McKinstry has the luxury of selecting a star-studded squad for any given assignment and still left with a lot to consider. He came at a time when The Gambia is blessed with dozens of players most of whom are starters in their clubs.
For this latest assignment, he named a star-studded team yesterday, saying: One of the nicest things in Gambian football at the moment is its progressively more difficult to name a squad because we have got a lot of players out there playing at a good level and getting regular minutes. I think you can look at our top 40 players and pretty much they are starting matches at their clubs while about a hundred or so other players are out there breaking through in their development. So that is really positive for Gambian football”.
He said the Gambia is in a competitive group in the Afcon qualifiers and so there is going to be some players who will be really disappointed to miss out because they might have been doing very well with the team in June but ultimately either picked some injuries or are not picking up minutes at their clubs.
“International football is not about being nice all the time but it is about those who are performing and are ready to come and play their best because that is the expectation of the media, the coaching staff and indeed the public. So we are naming a 24-man squad which obviously means that on match days, one will have to sit out because we can only use 23 on match day. But just for balance and competitiveness we are naming a 24 – man list,” he said.
Among the notable new arrivals included Real de Banjul’s goalkeeper Lamin Saidy who joins Ebrima Jarju and Sheikh Sibi.
Another new arrival is Joseph Ceesay who plays for Cesena in Italy in the defence as well as Momodou Njie. A new striker Abdoulie Ceesay, has been added. He, like Goalkeeper Ebrima Jarju, plays for Paide in Estonia.
The Gambia will play away to Comoros on September 4 and at home to Tunisia on September 8, with both matches taking place in Morocco since Gambia and Comoros have no Caf approved stadia to play home matches.
