Bojang warns Gambia against overconfidence

by Staff Reporter

Saturday Mar 11, 2023. 11:36

Gambia Under-20 coach Abdoulie Bojang has urged his players not to get lost in the moment when they contest the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations final against Senegal on Saturday evening.

The Young Scorpions have impressed at the tournament in Egypt and went unbeaten in their opening six matches en route to a first-ever final appearance.

Their opponents have an equally splendid record at AFCON 2023 and Bojang has been hard at work formulating a game-plan to prevent the Young Lions of Teranga from continuing the West Africans’ dominance on the continent.

The 44-year-old tactician admits what is being dubbed as the ‘Senegambia’ derby is the biggest game of his career and has stressed to his team the importance of staying switched on throughout at the Cairo International Stadium.

“We’re very much focused, which is the most important thing and this is the most important game in my life because we took it game by game and now we’re into the final,” Bojang said in the pre-match press conference.

“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.

“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.

“We have a similar record [to Senegal] but all we’ve been working on is to try to stop where the service is coming from.

“If they didn’t have service then they wouldn’t be able to be clinical so we’re working very hard to make sure that we stop where the service is coming from then we will have less threats.

“Looking at our team our defense is very solid playing the whole tournament without conceding it won’t be easy for them equally. If we win the ball we try to hit them on the counter attack.”