Sri Lanka arrive ahead of friendly

Sri Lanka last night became the first team to arrive in Dhaka to take part in next month's SAFF Championship with the other teams participating in the regional football extravaganza scheduled to land in the capital two days before the event, which will begin at the Bangabandhu National Stadium from September 4.

The Islanders came here earlier to prepare for the 12th edition of the tournament and the champions of the 1995 SAFF Championship will play a FIFA-sanctioned friendly against Bangladesh on August 29 in the northern district Nilphamari.

Sri Lanka were scheduled to leave today morning for Rangpur, where they will stay alongside the hosts . The hosts are expected to head to Rangpur on August 28 as the third and last contingent of the Bangladesh U-23 team returned home from Jakarta yesterday night. The rest of the players, who arrived on Saturday, will have to report to the manager today.

There is huge enthusiasm ahead of the friendly, bolstered by the U-23 team's performances in the Asian Games, where Bangladesh qualified for the knockout stage for the first time by beating Qatar and drawing against Thailand. Ultimately, they were eliminated by North Korea in the round of 16.

"Of the 20,000 tickets, some 13,000 -- with prices between Tk 100 to Tk 1,000 -- were sold in Nilphamari today [Sunday]," BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag said yesterday, adding that the state-owned BTV would telecast the match. The match will get underway at 4:00pm.