{"id":8788,"date":"2022-01-12T19:01:18","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T19:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today"},"modified":"2022-01-12T20:01:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T20:01:53","slug":"gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today","title":{"rendered":"Gambia to open Afcon debut against Mauritania today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong><\/span>The Gambia national senior team (Scorpions) will open their maiden Africa Cup of Nations tournament today (Wednesday) when they squared off against Mauritania in Group F at the Limbe Omnisport Stadium at 4pm. The match is seen as the clash between two of the most inexperienced sides at the Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n<p>The Scorpions are all set to make their tournament debut with this game, having secured a historic maiden qualification, while the Lions of Chinguetti have qualified for only the second time in history, having made their tournament debut in the 2019 edition in Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>They bowed out in the group stages without a single win and will be hoping for a better result here, although it won\u2019t be easy against the group\u2019s big guns, Tunisia and Mali.<\/p>\n<p><b>Mauritania vs Gambia Head-To-Head<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The sides have clashed 20 times in history, with Mauritania winning on five occasions and losing eight times. However, their last meeting, coming in March 2016 for an AFCON qualifier, ended in a goalless stalemate.<\/p>\n<p><b>Gambia<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Bologna forward Musa Barrow is the biggest star in the Scorpions\u2019 similarly inexperienced squad. The side\u2019s all-time appearance-maker Pa Modou Jagne has also been called up. Barrow may be joined by Assan Ceesay, the top-scorer in the Gambian team with 11 goals in 20 games, in the attack.<\/p>\n<p><b>Mauritania<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The Lions of Chinguetti have called up a young and inexperienced 28-man squad for the tournament, headlined by former Fulham striker Aboubakar Kamara.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Didier Da Rosa has also included a 16-year-old player in his team, Beyatt Lekweiry. Babacar Diop, Mbacke Ndiay and Mohamed El Mokhtar are some of the local players called up to the squad.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\">Gambia<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. The Gambia national senior team (Scorpions) will open their maiden Africa Cup of Nations tournament today (Wednesday) when they squared off against Mauritania in Group F at the Limbe Omnisport Stadium at 4pm. The match is seen as the clash between two of the most inexperienced sides at the Africa Cup of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":8787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17],"tags":[2368,2355,2361,563,260],"class_list":["post-8788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","tag-afcon","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-gambia","tag-debut","tag-gambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gambia to open Afcon debut against Mauritania today - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Gambia national senior team (Scorpions) will open their maiden Africa Cup of Nations tournament today (Wednesday) wh ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gambia to open Afcon debut against Mauritania today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Gambia national senior team (Scorpions) will open their maiden Africa Cup of Nations tournament today (Wednesday) wh ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-01-12T19:01:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-12T20:01:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2022\/01\/img-61df33796bec2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Gambia to open Afcon debut against Mauritania today\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-12T19:01:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-12T20:01:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today\"},\"wordCount\":295,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2022\/01\/img-61df33796bec2.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"AFCON\",\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Gambia\",\"Debut\",\"Gambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambia-to-open-afcon-debut-against-mauritania-today\",\"name\":\"Gambia to open Afcon debut against Mauritania today - 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