Antou Badjan is proving his tag of being the new star player to have come through the ranks at Gambia Ports Authority FC in this year’s Gambian premier league season.

Badjan, who was part of the Gambia’s squad to play against the Atlas Lions of Morocco at the weekend but was later dropped from the final list has been central to Ports Authority’s rise to third place on the 12-team premier league table with 29 points from 19 games, three adrift of leaders Gambia Armed Forces with three games remaining.

Born on the 13th of September, 1993, the 18-year-old Antou like several other Gambian kids started playing football in the streets of Serekunda and joined the Ndow’s Primary School team at Grade 4. Following his graduation from school, Antou started playing at Nawettan level for hometown club Luzan FC where he won two trophies, the League and Knockout titles before he moved to Bundas FC also of the Serekunda West Sports Development Committee, Nawettan zone where he also won a trophy.

Badjan then went on to Second Division football with the now defunct “Ham-Ham” for a season but didn’t play for them because he joined them only at the latter part of the season. “Then I moved to the youth team of G.P.A to train with them. I trained for a whole season with their youth set up before I was promoted to the senior team,” he told Observer Sports in a recent interview.

Having been promoted to the first team, Antou couldn’t hope for a better way to debut as he was given his first competitive appearance in a CAF Champions League game against Jaraff of Senegal while he also competed in the WAFU Club Cup for the team against Casa Sports. He was also a Gambian FA Cup finalist when they lost to Gamtel in the finals and again lost the 2011 Super Cup final to the same opposition.

Antou Badjan is also a part of the Gambia U-20 team currently training as they prepare for the African Youth Championship qualifiers and other regional age limit competitions at the WAFU Zone II.

Umbria U-19 International Tournament

Antou Badjan was part of the Gambia U-19 team that took part in the Umbria Regional International Championship that was hosted by the Italian region and saw the participation of six nations. England, Slovakia, Romania and San Marino where the other participating teams. He played in all of Gambia’s two games in the 2-0 defeat to Slovakia and a 1-1 stalemate against the hosts.

Antou Badjan further went onto take part in two friendly games that Gambia played against Trestina of the Italian Serie C (third tier) which ended in a 2-1 win for the West Africans and a 5-1 win against a Perugia selection. Antou according to eye witnesses played extremely well in all four games.