One expects Bangladesh Football to wake up from the slumber as Bangladesh Football Federation failed to arrange any international engagements as the national booters literally spend last year in hibernation.
But with usher of the new year, local Football pundits hopes that the national football team would be gearing up to fulfill the international commitments next year. Bangladesh national football team has not featured in any international football commitments since October 2016 after losing 3-1 against Bhutan in the AFC Cup Qualifiers. Perhaps Bangladesh national team has set an unofficial record for being inactive for nearly one and half year.
However with the new year in horizon, as Bangladesh has number of international commitments in 2018, one hopes BFF wakes up from the slumber and play their part effectively in the forthcoming scenario.
The president of BFF Kazi Salahuddin, the chairman of the National Teams Committee Kazi Nabil Ahmed, the national coach Andrew Ord and the Technical Director Paul Smalley recently met each other meeting and may have chalked up the required future plans to boost national booters.
Kazi Nabil emphasized upon the adequate preparations. “We have the Asian Games Qualifiers and the SAFF Championships in 2018, moreover we also have age level commitments. We don’t want to spend time in lamenting about the past but instead to look forward positively to wipe away the failures.
Nabil added, ” We are the host of the SAFF Championships and we require comprehensive preparation for facing the challenges ahead” .
“We are planning to host a couple of international friendlies in the first quarter of the year, we will be starting the national camp just after the conclusion of the Bangladesh Premier League, head coach will select his players accordingly.
” We also have to consider that Abahani and Saif Sporting who both will be playing in the AFC Cup, so if the players get in touch with a designed training program, the club will reap the benefits” added Nabil. Whereas the Bangladesh national football team spends frustrated time in the football arena, it is the national U-19 team has shown some promises.
In the SAFF U-18 Championship took place first in Bhutan back in September. Bangladesh started their run with arguably one of the finest comeback matches to triumph over India where Bangladesh came back from being 3 goals behind to winning the match by scoring 4 goals in the second half.
After winning the thriller match against India with a score line of 4-3, Bangladesh then went on to defeat Maldives by 2-0 with some mesmerizing performances by the youngsters.
The following match against Nepal saw Bangladesh suffer a defeat with the score line being 1-2 in favor of the opponents.
The final match of Bangladesh in SAFF U-18 Championship won against hosts Bhutan. In that match Bangladesh dominated the host team to get a 2-0 victory, but that wasn’t enough to earn them the Champions crown as Nepal defeated India in the other match to be crowned the champions.
In the AFC U-19 Championship at Tajikistan, Bangladesh started their tournament with a draw against Tajikistan with a 0-0 score. The next match saw Bangladesh bag a late win against Maldives.
Mahbubur Rahman Sufil scored a 90 minute winner for the team in red and green. Bangladesh lost their third match in the tournament with Uzbekistan. In what turned out to be a heartbreak for Bangladesh, Uzbekistan grabbed the winning goal with an own goal at 94th minute.
The final match of the Bangladesh team was against the Sri Lankan side. Bangladesh won the match in a dominating fashion with a score line of 4-0, only to see themselves end their run in the tournament despite having same points but had to bow out to Tajikistan who had superior goal differences.
