The Gambia’s Women national team have reached the second round of the 2018 African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) qualifiers after skipping past their counterparts from Burkina Faso in a penalty shootout.
The female Scorpions who suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat in the first leg of the two-legged tie in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou last Saturday, overturned the deficit by securing a 2-1 win in normal time followed by a 5-3 penalty shootout triumph. A goal from Adama Tamba and an own-goal from the Burkina Faso side secured the historic victory, to set up second round qualifying tie against Nigeria’s Women national team.
Tamba, who scored the only goal for the Gambians in Ouagadougou last Saturday tapped in from close range to give the Female Scorpions the lead after 21 minutes of play at the Independence stadium in Bakau on Tuesday evening. The star player who was on trials in France with the Paris Giants, PSG’s female wing last autumn, was again involved in the Gambia’s second after her well taken free-kick in the 37th minute was bundled in by a Burkina Faso player to give the Gambian side a two goal cushion to take into the half-time break.
Burkina Faso pulled one back after the half-time break through Salimata Sampore, who was also on the score-sheet in the first leg, putting the game tied at 3-3 on aggregate score, which forced a penalty shootout to break the tie, where The Gambian girls, who had scored all 5 shoots as opposed to the Burkina’s 3 emerged on top to book a date against he Super Falcons of Nigeria in the Second Round of the qualifiers on June 4th.
The win means The Gambian team can put behind the turmoil they endured in their travel from Burkina Faso over the weekend, where they were reportedly stranded on transit in Morocco and only arrived in Banjul on Monday morning, just over 24 hours before yesterday evening’s game. Which saw some pundits accuse the Gambia Football Federation of sex biasness and mistreatment of the female players. Charges the Federation categorically refuted and described the circumstances surrounding the chaotic travel arrangements as something beyond their control, forced on them by the difficulty in getting a suitable flight to and from Burkina Faso culminated with the short time frame between Saturday’s game and Tuesday, which in fairness is barely 72 hours. But notwithstanding, others have questioned why travel via Morocco instead Senegal, which is closer to both home and Burkina Faso. A route the latter has used with great ease to come to the Gambia this week.
