Three goals in a hundred minutes: how Ebrima Colley turned Ghana v Gambia

There was a good half-hour left to play at the Accra Sports Stadium on Tuesday 29 September when head coach Johnathan McKinstry sent on Ebrima Colley. The Black Stars, the Ghana national team, had led 2-0 in the 33rd minute, thanks to an Ernest Nuamah penalty and a Felix Afena-Gyan free-kick. Muhammed Badamosi, from the penalty spot, and then defender Omar Colley, his namesake, had pulled Gambia level before the break.

In the 68th minute, the winger popped up to put the Scorpions, as the Gambian national team are nicknamed, ahead. Captain Gideon Mensah had just fluffed his clearance. In the first minute of stoppage time, set up by Sainey Sanyang, he sealed the 4-2.

Scorers, stats and line-ups: follow the Ghana v Gambia match page live on SNA.

Four days earlier, on 25 September, he had already opened the scoring from the penalty spot (18th) against Somalia (2-1). That day, the Scorpions returned to the Independence Stadium in Bakau, where they had not played since 2021. A starter, Colley was substituted in the 69th. In a hundred minutes, he put three shots on target, and all three went in.

Two matches is a thin sample, and one of those goals is a penalty while another came from a fluffed clearance. But the contrast is real: in more than seven years with the national team, he had scored only twice for his country before this September.

After the September matches, he shared the top spot among the group-stage scorers with Zimbabwe's Marshall Munetsi. After two matchdays, Gambia are second in Group C, level on points (6) with Ivory Coast, who are ahead of them on goal difference; Ghana and Somalia have none. Group C contains no host nation: its top two will go to AFCON 2027, in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In the three groups containing the host countries, who qualify automatically, only one place remains up for grabs.

From Tallinding to the Tardini

Ebrima Colley was born on 1 February 2000 in Serekunda, near Banjul. He grew up in Tallinding, a town about twenty minutes from the capital, as he told Atalanta's official website in April 2018. His older brother, Ansu, also played, as a playmaker. “My dad wanted me to study, but now he's happy too,” he said at the time (translated by SNA).

The details of his move from Gambia to Bergamo remain unknown. All that is known is that he joined Atalanta's under-19s in the 2017-2018 season. He had to wait for his paperwork to be in order before he could play, from February 2018, the month of his 18th birthday.

On 22 March 2019, he won his first cap aged 19, coming on in the 81st minute of a draw against Algeria (1-1). Less than three months later, on 14 June, at the Tardini stadium in Parma, he came off the bench in the Italian Primavera championship final against Inter. In the 84th minute, he finished a counter-attack, set up by Dejan Kulusevski: 1-0, and a title the young Bergamo side had waited twenty-one years for. The role of decisive substitute therefore does not date from Accra. In December of the same year, he made his Serie A debut, going on to play five matches for Atalanta in the 2019-2020 season.

At AFCON 2021, in Cameroon, he was part of the Gambian squad that reached the quarter-finals, on the country's first appearance. Two years later, in Ivory Coast, he scored against Cameroon in a 3-2 defeat, the third in three matches: it is one of his two goals for the national team before September.

Five loans, three countries

What followed looks like a suitcase never properly unpacked. Atalanta loaned him to Hellas Verona in September 2020, then to Spezia in August 2021, where he scored in his first match, a penalty in the Coppa Italia against Pordenone. In August 2022, it was off to Istanbul and Fatih Karagümrük. In September 2023, another loan, this time to Young Boys in Bern.

On 13 December 2023, in Leipzig, he became the first Gambian to score in the Champions League. In spring 2024, he was crowned Swiss champion with Young Boys, who signed him permanently in June on a contract running to 2028.

Last season was leaner: 17 league matches and two goals in 2025-2026, over 436 minutes, or about 25 minutes per match, the playing time of a substitute. On 15 July 2026, Young Boys loaned him for the season to Konyaspor, in the Süper Lig, the Turkish top flight, where he has one goal in five matches and 211 minutes.

McKinstry's Gambia

Johnathan McKinstry knows Accra: his African story began in Ghana, at the Right to Dream academy. Appointed in May 2024 to succeed Belgian Tom Saintfiet, the Northern Irishman had previously managed Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenyan club Gor Mahia.

His first campaign ended in failure: Gambia missed AFCON 2025 in Morocco. Then, in October 2025, the Scorpions recorded the biggest official win in their history against Seychelles (7-0). “When I took over the Gambia team two years ago, we gave close to 30 first caps in two years, so we did our rebuilding,” McKinstry said at a press conference in Accra, according to Kenyan website Pulse Sports (translated by SNA).

“Beyond the tactics, I understood the culture. When we got back to 2-2, I knew how the Black Stars could react, that the game would become less controlled and that we would get our chances,” he said, according to Myjoyonline (translated by SNA). After two defeats in two matchdays, the Ghanaian federation announced on 1 October that it had parted company by mutual agreement with Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz.

Between 9 and 17 November, Gambia will play Ivory Coast, the other unbeaten side in Group C, twice, first away, then at home. The top spot in the group will be decided there, and Ebrima Colley will arrive with three goals in a hundred minutes of playing time in this campaign.

Live match pages on SNA (scorers, stats, line-ups)

25 September: Gambia v Somalia (2-1)

29 September: Ghana v Gambia (2-4)

SNA – West Africa

Photo: Anneprudence / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)