Gambia women U-17 make history by booking World Cup berth

The Gambia Women U-17 have beaten Tunisia Women U-17 home and away to become the 10th team to qualify for the U-17 Women’s World Cup.

The Gambian girls won the first leg of the tie two weeks back at the Brikama mini stadium with a 1-0 and followed that up with a 2-1 win away in Tunis on Friday.

The first leg played in Brikama saw the Gambian girls register a single-goal victory over their Tunisian counterparts. Substitute Fatou Darboe scored the only goal four minutes into injury time, and the Gambian girls even had the luxury of missing a penalty on the hour mark when Adama Tamba shot wide from the spot.

Gambia are the surprise qualifiers for the tournament so far, joining the bigger football names of Ghana and Nigeria as Africa’s representatives in the cup competition with respective victories over Zambia (2-1, 5-0) and South Africa (0-0, 5-1).

The ten women’s U-17 youth teams to have qualified so far for the World Cup in Azerbaijan are China, North Korea, Japan, Brazil, Uruguay, Columbia, Ghana, Nigeria and Gambia. The remaining places in the tournament will be taken by the winners of the Oceania qualifiers (one place), CONCACAF and Europe (two places).

Azerbaijan have qualified automatically as the hosts of the tournament. The U-17 Women’s World Cup will be held in Baku and Lankaran from 22 September to 13 October.