Bangladesh Under-19 Football team will play the Maldives Under-19 side in their 2nd match of the five-team Group B of the AFC Under-19 Championship Qualifiers today (Thursday) at the Pamir Stadium in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
The match will kick off at 4pm Bangladesh time.
Sri Lanka will play Uzbekistan in the day’s other match at 1pm Bangladesh time at the same venue.
Bangladesh Youth team, the runners-up of the SAFF U-18 Championship, stayed in the title race of the Group B of the Asian meet forcing upper ranked and hosts Tajikistan to play goalless draw playing a confident football in their opening match on Tuesday.
The Maldives played to a 2-2 draw with Sri Lanka in the other opening day’s match.
On completion of two first round matches on Tuesday, four teams — Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Tajikistan and Bangladesh — have secured one point each playing as many match. But, the Maldives and Sri Lanka dominated the group scoring more goals than Tajikistan and Bangladesh.
Record slightly favoured Bangladesh National team against the Maldives National side as they beat them on five occasions against four defeats and three draws in their 12 meetings since their first appearance in 1984 in the first SAF Games in Nepal.
Bangladesh made a flying start beating the Maldives by 5-0 goals in their first appearance and maintained their winning runs in the following two matches beating the Maldives 5-0 in the 2nd match in Nepal and crushed them by 8-0 goals in the 2nd SAF Games in Dhaka in 1985.
But Bangladesh national side made worse results in the last three matches conceding
1-3 goals defeat each in the SAFF Championship in 2011 and 2015 and suffered another humiliating 0-5 goals defeat in the international friendly in Male in September 2016.
After the Tuesday’s match, Bangladesh coach cum former famed booter Muhbub Hossain Roxy in his immediate reaction said, “I am really happy to settle for a draw against hosts Tajikistan in front of their home crowd and home condition. I like to give all credit to my players who played a confident game to execute their duties properly not to concede any goal as per our plan.”
In the remaining Group B matches, Bangladesh will play Uzbekistan on November 6 and Sri Lanka on November 8, both at 3pm Bangladesh time at the Hisor Central Stadium in Tajikistan.
The group champion teams along with the five best runners-up of the 10 Asian groups will earn the rights to play in the final round of the tournament billed for Indonesia next year.
