Gambia Under-20 manger, Abdoulie Bojang, has rallied his team to be fully focused when they face neighbours Senegal in the final of the Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Cairo on Saturday evening.
The Young Scorpions and Young Terenga Lions are the best two teams at the tournament in Egypt. Either side will be a first time winner with Gambia’s best result being third place in 2007 and 2021 while the Senegalese were runners in three consecutive tournaments in 2015, 2017 and 2019.
The quest for the title will therfore be itching for both teams. It will however be a bigger achievement for the Gambians due to their relatively small geographical size and also being way less of football power compared to Senegal.
“It will be an interesting game, a derby game but the most important is to make sure that we concentrate fully during the course of the game,” Bojang said on the CAF website.
“We want to put up a respectable performance and at the end of the day we want to win the game.
“As I said earlier it’s going to be an interesting game so we shouldn’t be overconfident.
“This is a very important game as a first timer in the TotalEnergies U-20 AFCON the first achievement was we won silver in the zonal qualifiers. Coming into the continental championship winning it would be something we would be proud of.
“The preparations have been concluded and now we’re focusing on the game and we want to do everything humanly possible to win the game and we want to set our own record which is very important.”
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Who will we see celebrating tonight? ???? #TotalEnergiesAFCONU20 pic.twitter.com/8BR15axOik
— #TotalEnergiesAFCONU20 (@CAF_Online) March 11, 2023
The Gambia defeated the Flying Eagles of Nigeria 1-0 in the semi-finals while Senegal trashed Tunisia 3-0 in the other semi-final.
The bronze medal match has since been concluded with Nigeria getting the better of the Young Carthage Eagles 3-0.
