Tough test for hosts

A disheartened Bangladesh team is looking forward to putting up a better performance against Saudi Arabia in their third Group A match of the AFC U-19 Championship Qualifiers at the Bangabandhu National Stadium today.
Five-time champions Iraq jolted Bangladesh's hopes of qualifying for the finals after inflecting on them a 6-0 defeat, a loss which Bangladesh coach Nikola Ilievski, his coaching assistants and his charges did not expect.
Nevertheless, today's match against Saudi Arabia is very crucial for Bangladesh if they want to stay in the race. But after speaking to the coach it seems that the players are suffering from a shortage of confidence following the defeat against Iraq.
“As a coach I want to win the game but the reality is that the job is very tough for us as Saudi Arabia are a good team like Iraq. Besides, it is also difficult to boost up the boys after a 6-0 defeat but I am always optimistic and we will go there to play attacking football against Saudi Arabia,” said Ilievski before conducting light practice in the premises of the Bangladesh Football Federation.
The Macedonian also believes that Bangladesh do not have good midfielders who can hold the ball and assist in build-up play and also pointed to problems in the backline.
Right-back Shakil will play in place of the suspended Tapu Barman.
However, Saudi coach Khalid Al Koroni has a lot of respect for Bangladesh and believes that the hosts, Iraq, Oman and themselves can all still qualify from the group as all have three points each.
“Bangladesh's loss to Iraq has made our task more difficult as Bangladesh will try to compensate for their defeat and they will put full effort to win the game against us,” said Koroni before practice at the Birshresha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium.
“First of all, we will try not to concede any goals against Bangladesh and then we will try to find the back of the Bangladesh net,” said Koroni.