By Landing Ceesay
President Adama Barrow has applauded the performance of the Scorpions at the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON 2021) in Cameroon.
“When you were leaving, I told you that we are the Scorpions. We are very small, but we defeated the elephants who are the Syli Nationals of Guinea. I think it was a very good performance; your performance went way beyond our expectations. I was not expecting that your performance will reach that level. So, you have made us proud,” President Barrow said. “Your performance is a respectable one in Cameroon. People thought that you will be the underdogs of the tournament, but it turned out to be a different thing.”
He said the team made history at the continental showpiece by their performance as they went into the competition as underdogs but changed that narrative.
“You have made history and we will still encourage you to continue to work as a team. If we maintain this team, we believe that we can get to another level to even win AFCON and qualify for the World Cup. We used to have stars who were very good and they worked so hard to make us qualify but couldn’t. So you are the team that worked so hard to make the Gambia qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Scorpions were eliminated at the quarterfinal stage by Cameroon, the host nation of the 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations 2021.
Prior to their elimination, they defeated Mauritania in their first-ever AFCON match; drew Mali, before beating Tunisia to progress to the round of 16 of the competition; and later defeated the Syli National of Guinea Conakry to advance to the quarterfinal stage where Cameroon eliminated them from the competition.
The team returned to The Gambia in the early hours of Wednesday to hand over the battle flag back to the head of state, President Adama Barrow.