Booters make their bow today
The Asian Games proper may still be four days away, but the football event has already hit the ground running. For Bangladesh, the games begin today when the under-23 booters take on Uzbekistan in their first match of Group B.
The match will kick off at the Pakansari Stadium in Bogor regency, around 60 kilometres south of Indonesia's capital Jakarta, at 3:00pm Bangladesh time.
Bangladesh and Uzbekistan had met in the group stages of the last Asian Games in Incheon too, with the Central Asian nation running away with a comprehensive 3-0 victory.
The men in red and green had in fact made a promising start to that event four years ago, beating their imperious South Asian rivals Afghanistan by a solitary goal but that defeat against Uzbekistan, followed by a narrow 2-1 defeat against Hong Kong, denied Lodewijk de Kruif's charges qualification for the knock-out rounds.
This time though, there will not probably be much of an expectation with the Bangladesh team as they have two other strong opponents in the group in the form of Thailand and Qatar. The top two finishers of each of the six groups plus four of the best third-placed teams will move to the Round of 16.
The other reason for not having much expectation is the fact that the footballers did not have any long-term preparation for these games and they have not played a single competitive match since their defeat against Bhutan in October, 2016.
The booters displayed a fairly good performance in a 1-1 draw in a friendly match against Laos in March under former coach Andrew Ord, but Ord's sudden departure set the team back considerably. Under new coach Jamie Day, Bangladesh have had less than eight weeks of training, although they did have two preparation camps in Qatar and South Korea, with mixed results in the practice matches they played there. Injuries to some key players has also played its part in setting a humble target.
“The players had practice sessions over the last couple of days that we are here in Indonesia. The coach is just trying to work with his formation and see if the players can apply on the pitch what they have been learning in training,” team manager Satyajit Das Rupu said on the eve of the opening match.
“We all know Uzbekistan are a strong side. What we want is that the players keep fighting till the end, which is what they have been doing in the recent practice matches,” Rupu added.
However, the Asian Games is perhaps not the most important assignment for Day and his charges, rather it is the SAFF Championship in September and the Bangabandhu Gold Cup in October -- both to be played at home -- that hold more importance to the team. Hence the Asian Games, where under-23 teams participate with three overage players available in the squad, is being treated as a platform to judge the team's current standing and iron out the frailties of the side.
Hence the coach's expectations for this particular event are very realistic. “We need to play at our best for that [get results] to happen as we are playing against three very good teams,” the 38-year-old coach has been saying in the build-up to these games.
His team combination seems to be set, with defenders Tapu Barman, Tutul Hossain Badsha, Rahmat Mia and Bishwanath Gosh, holding midfielders Jamal Bhuiyan and Masuk Mia Jonny, midfielders Rabiul Hasan, Mohammad Abdullah and Mahbubur Rahman Sufil and lone striker Saad Uddin most likely to slot into a 4-2-3-1 formation.