By Momodou Jarju
The head coach of Scorpions Johnathan McKinstry told GFF Media that he was pleased with the 2-0 victory they secured against Burundi in the eighth round of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. He also shared his elation with the Gambian community in Kenya who turned out in their numbers to support the players.
Commenting on the game, Johnny said they have huge confidence and faith in the squad which was why they rotated the starting line-up. McKinstry made four changes to the team that started in Friday’s 3-1 win over Kenya.
“[It’s] a different type of game, kicking off at 10 o’clock at night, floodlights going out for 30 minutes, it’s currently half past midnight and the game’s just finished. So this was a really crazy sort of situation to find ourselves in, but the guys have worked extremely hard, 2-0 win, a clean sheet, we denied Burundi, they had one or two chances, but a lot, we could have maybe scored another couple, so guys worked extremely hard.”
“This is the first time in the history of Gambian football that the Scorpions win back-to-back World Cup qualifiers. I’m not sure of the African qualifiers, but definitely the World Cup, this is the first time. Yeah, we were aware coming into this, look, they’ve had some back-to-back wins before, but they’ve been in different windows, so maybe they won the second game in a March window and won the first game in a June window, but we became aware earlier in the week that they’ve never won back-to-back qualifiers in the same window, so to have a perfect window of six points, it’s never happened in the last 60, 70 years of Gambian football, so we told that to the players.
“We consistently asked them to raise the standard, and yes, it puts them under pressure, because maybe you’d say, oh, don’t put them under pressure, they’re young guys, but I think these guys respond to pressure, and look, it’s not a qualification, it’s not playing at a World Cup, but I think we have to take every step forward and celebrate it, and we’ve got to strive for better every day,” he said while adding this result probably move The Gambia five, six, or seven places in the World Rankings.