Bangladesh Premier League champions Dhaka Abahani face an uphill task as they will be desperately looking to salvage a point as they face league leader Bengaluru FC in the AFC Cup fixture on May 3 at Dhaka.
The traditional sky blues are the bottom team of their group E losing all the three matches till date. Abahani lost 2-0 to Maziya of Maldives at home and lost 3-1 and 2-0 respectively against Mohunbagan of Kolkata and Bengaluru in the two away matches respectively.
Bengaluru, the top team of the group with maximum nine points arrives at Dhaka today.
Abahani manager Satyajit Das Rupu hopes to see his players rise on the occasion. “We have nothing left only to restore some of our pride, I have asked my players to take the field to win the match, we want win the match for the club as well for the country, and I sincerely believe it is not all an impossible task” said Rupu.
In the last face off between the two teams on April 17, Nishu Kumar and Marjan Jugovic scored in the 40th and 83rd minutes in the Group E match at the Kanteerava Stadium.
With this win, Bengaluru remained on top of the group with nine points from three matches. It was Abahani’s third loss in as many matches and they remained at the bottom of the group. The 3-4-3 formation worked beautifully for Bengaluru as the wingbacks dominated the game.
Abahani, on the other hand, had their best chance in the 33rd minute when Nabib Newaz Jiban got the better of Ranjan and Juanan. But Ralte denied him a goal. Again in 33rd minute, Abahani spilled another scoring chance when Mamun could not reach to a pass of Brown as Nishu intercepted the dangerous move.
Rupu was ruing those missed opportunities. “We have to convert the chances into goals, we have been missing a lot of chances and paying for it, we hope it would not happen in Dhaka ‘ concluded Rupu.
