Bangladesh completed the five-team Group B engagements of the AFC Under-19 Championship Qualifiers with a comfortable win beating their South Asian winless rivals Sri Lanka by 4-0 goals in their 4th and last match at the Hisor Central Stadium in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on Wednesday.
All the four goals were scored in the first half.
Striker Mahbubur Rahman struck twice in the 38th and 45th minutes while defender Bishwanath Ghosh and Riyadul Hasan scored one goal each in the 13th and 33rd minutes respectively.
Despite the day’s victory, Bangladesh Youth Team are almost out of the race with seven points from four outings following their 0-1 defeat against stronger and favourite Uzbekistan conceding a last-minute suicidal goal by Mohammad Atiquzzaman.
Top ranking Uzbekistan assured their final round berth from Group B with one match to spare against their contenders and hosts Tajikistan with all-win record securing nine points from three matches having an advantage of 17 plus goals.
The two teams were scheduled to meet each other in the last group match on Wednesday evening.
Hosts Tajikistan also brightened their chance to reach the next year’s final round of AFC meet in Indonesia either as Group champions or runners-up securing seven points from three outings with an advantage of plus 11 goals.
Bangladesh have now nothing to do but to wait for Tajikistan’s massive defeat against group leader Uzbekistan in the last group match.
For being the group runners-up, Uzbekistan will have to beat Tajikistan by at least a difference eight goals.
In the ongoing meet, Bangladesh remained at 3rd slot in the five-team group after Uzbekistan (9 pts) and Tajikistan (7 pts), securing seven points from four matches with four goal advantage after beating the Maldives 1-0, drew goalless with hosts Tajikistan and conceded 0-1 defeat against Uzbekistan.
The ten group champion teams along with the five best runners-up of the 10 Asian groups will earn the rights play in the final round of the tournament billed for Indonesia next year.
Group standing with match remaining between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
Teams P W D L GF GA GD Pts
Uzbekistan 3 3 0 0 17 0 17 9
Tajikistan 3 2 1 0 11 0 11 7
Bangladesh 4 2 1 1 5 1 4 7
Maldives 4 0 1 3 2 14 -12 1
Sri Lanka 4 0 1 3 2 22 -20 1
