Barely a few weeks after the mouth-watering draw for the 2010 World Cup qualifying rounds, the Gambia Football Association is set to start the ball rolling. The Scorpions are billed to take on Sierra Leone in a proposed international friendly scheduled for Sunday, December 23, in Banjul, Observer Sports can reveal.

The friendly encounter is part of  preparation towards the South African 2010 qualifying rounds that double as qualifiers for the 2010 Nations Cup finals in Angola.

According to a statement from the Gambia Football Association, more international friendlies would be organised during the months of January and March, 2008 to better prepare the Scorpions who are eyeing their first-ever World Cup and Nations Cup finals.

The football association commended Africell Company, for their fruitful partnership to ensure good preparations for the Scorpions.

Gambia are drawn in Group 6 with  Senegal, Liberia and  Algeria in what pundits recently termed as the 'Group of Death'.

The African World Cup qualifiers will begin at the end of May and African countries, according to Fifa, will have to play their first four qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup finals on successive weekends.

The first group phase of the qualifiers begin at the end of May and conclude in September 2008.

The four weekends of June will be used for the first four rounds of group matches, presenting a potential logistical headache for teams having to criss-cross the continent. Poor flight connections, which often turn travelling to international matches into multi-day and multi-stop expeditions, are likely to cause consternation among coaches.