The Terranga Lions of Senegal Saturday, 4th july, trashed its neighbours by a goal to nil to book a place in the first round of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) Rwanda 2016 qualifiers.

The visitors gained an upper hand in the seventh minute of the game after Stade de M’Bour forward, Mouhamad Waliou Ndoye’s header passed through the Scorpions captain and goalie, Christopher Allen.

The well attended match at The Gambia’s Independence Stadium in Bakau was seen as a good opportunity for the host in their bid to turn the tide around after a shocking defeat at the Estade Demba Diop in Dakar, Senegal.

A fortnight night ago, the Terranga Lions defeated The Scorpions by 3-1, thus giving them a massive advantage over their opponents. That result meant that The Gambia had to win with a clear two nil in order to turn the tide around. At Saturday’s encounter, this was a herculean task for The Scorpions, who despite coming closer to produce the desired results, failed to materialise the numerous chances.

Even with the seven changes in the Scorpions line-up, the match ended with a disappointing outcome for the country’s footballing community, which had expected a better result in Banjul.

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Reacting to the outcome of the encounter in a post-match press conference, The Scorpions coach, Peter Bonu Johnson, said they came into the game with the intention of turning down the score line, but heaped blame on what he referred to as “the hesitant poor finishing of the players at the front”.

– You will agree that we had series of chances but could not take them. We were better here. The commitment was better. We created many chances but luck was not on our side. What we must do now as a nation is to start building a team now. At national team level you cannot build a team in weeks or a month, he queried.

Fellow coach, Mustapha Seck of the Terranga Lions, said they came to Banjul not necessarily to win but to qualify to the next round.

– We were working on a result to give us qualification. There were a lot of things to play for. We did what we were training on and so we were not under pressure. We came here with our game plan and thank God it worked well, he concluded.