By Momodou Jarju
Yahya Manneh, the head coach of The Gambia U17 male team dubbed Baby Scorpions, has articulated his-led team preparations for the forthcoming CAF TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Morocco.
The Baby Scorpions, who are pitted in Group C alongside reigning champions Senegal, Somalia and Tunisia, will be returning to the continent’s youth championship after over a decade absence.
As part of their preparations, the team played a test match over the weekend against Gambinos Stars Africa in Mandinary and secured a 3-2 win.
Coach Manneh spoke to GFF Media after the game where he stated what they’ve been working on ahead of the competition which will tee off at the end of this month. He said they’ve evaluated the positions they ought to strengthen and has since scouted players to fulfill the roles.
“Seeing them play today, I think these two problems of WAFU are a bit solved, but this is a test game, so we can be able to put up the absolute conclusion that we are okay with what we see so far, but we still have a little time to work on.
“When we started, we were working more on defending, balancing and how to play from the back, so that was our focus up to today in the test game. We didn’t focus [on] the offensive area, so we got the three goals because of that individual brilliance.
“But our focus mostly was on the defending aspect of this, which I think is not a bad one because looking at the team that we are playing against, Gambinos is a very structured team, so at least we are able to contain them,” he explained.
Nonetheless, he said they still have work to do to iron out their style of play and improve their defence. The Gambia will open its account against Senegal. Manneh said it would be a tough opener as it was true when they faced them in the recent WAFU tournament where they lost 3-1 to them. But they’ve learned a lesson, according to him.
“So we are going to play against them as WAFU champions, but ultimately they deserve the respect from us. But notwithstanding, we are also going to challenge our players…So when we do, I think it’s going to be a fair result at the end of the day.
“So literally we have to focus more on the Senegal game. We have their videos that I am analysing every day, trying to identify where their strengths are, especially when they play against us. But also try to see where their weaknesses are and we are able to exploit those areas,” he said.
Speaking about the squad he is assembling, the Gambian tactician said they have players in The Gambia plus two foreign-based players set to join them.
“We have Alieu Drammeh coming from Barcelona and we have Sheriff coming from Holland. So we have these two foreign players coming. So the number here still needs to be cut down. We are going to cut the number down to the required number that we have with CAF,” he said.
