Coach Paul Put dwells on his Europe mission

Gambia’s Belgian coach Paul Put, last week, breezed into the country after a five-day intensive tour of Europe.

The Scorpions coach, who has returned to prepare his team ahead of Gambia’s next weekend’ crucial match against Liberia in the 2010 World Cup and African Nations Cup qualifiers, told Observer Sports that the five-day trip, which he described as a success, took him to England, Holland and then Belgium.

He said: “I was in England to watch and contact some players. In Holland, I met a firm that specialises in the organisation of training camps and friendly games inside Europe.

I prefer to hold training camps in Europe because it’s difficult to gather the players in Africa due to flight difficulties. The company has shown keen interest in arranging a friendly for us, and hopefully by November we will try and stage one.”

The Belgian revealed that he was also privileged to meet with Sportsvus, a Belgian company that deals with a DVD system of analysing football matches.

This analysing system, Paul Put, insists, will not only help prepare his team, but also other categories of the national teams in their future encounters, noting that the modern system is widely used at the professional levels.

On his state of preparedness ahead of the September 6 match against Liberia, Paul Put said arrangements are being made to bring the players together at least five days before the encounter that is dubbed as a “must-win affair” by both nations.

“The FIFA regulations state that players should be released five days before the match, but my worry is the flight connection to Africa,” he said.

“I hope that I will get my players as soon as possible because our proposed friendly against Iran did not materialise and I had hope to use that friendly to prepare for the Liberia match.”