'Win, lose and stay together'

It is perhaps not time to say that the scenario of Bangladesh football has changed, but the way the booters performed in the Asian Games was obvious evidence that there is a wind of change. And of course it has been the young guns driving that change which started silently before the arrival of English coach Jamie Day, who is now pushing the team to reach a better place.

Before Day took charge of the national team in June, English-born-Australian coach Andrew Ord had started making changes to fitness and stamina levels, food habits and attitude during the SAFF U-18 Championship last year. He also unearthed brave players like Mahabubur Rahman Sufil, Jafar Iqbal, Tutul Hossain Badsha, Saad Uddin, Bishwanath Gosh, Rahmat Mia, Sushanta Tripura, Anisur Rahman Zico, Pritom and others who repaid Ord's faith after posting a brilliant come-from-behind 4-3 win over their Indian counterparts. And those players are now filling the holes in the senior team.

Under Ord's guidance, those young players had also been part of a come-from-behind 2-2 draw against Laos in a March friendly, thanks to a tremendous never-say-die attitude and much fitter physical condition that allowed them to run till the last minute of the game.

After Ord's sudden departure, the National Teams Management Committee of the BFF picked a suitable successor with the appointment of Day, who has seemingly been driving the boys in the right direction so far.

"The good performance in Asian Games was the outcome of our hard work over the past two months," said midfielder Mohammad Abdullah, who made his national team debut against Bhutan in 2016.

"I have played under three coaches -- Tom Saintfiet, Andrew Ord and Jamie Day -- and they have different approaches but Jamie injected something that the other two coaches were missing.

"Before we put our all concentration on how to defend but this time around we also think of how to attack the opponents by keeping our defensive organisation right. You can say the players are more positionally aware in term of defence and attack during transition periods and those things were injected by Jamie," added the midfielder, who played almost all matches as a substitute.

"Now you see the changes in the team because our fitness levels and stamina have improved compared to the past. A fighting attitude and winning belief has also been grown within us," explained Abdullah, who however admitted the changes were the fruits of long-term training.

"I think the conditioning camp was the turning point of the changes that you see now and it started during the regime of Ord, who showed us that food habits were crucial to keeping our bodies fit," admired Abdullah.

Defender Rahmat Mia echoed Abdullah's sentiments, saying that the changes started from the national youth team which showed bravery in both the SAFF U-18 Championship and SAFF U-19 Championship Qualifiers last year.

"The players have grown willpower and believe that we can do anything if we give effort and we are now more self-driven to do better in international matches. For example, a player sustained an injury and sat idle previously. But an injured player is now spending more time on the pitch to recover. Besides, there is a healthy competition among the players in a bid to cement their place in the starting eleven," said Rahmat, adding that nothing was being imposed from the coaching staffs; rather the players were doing everything willingly.

"To be honest, the coach remains hesitant to choose the starting eleven because junior to senior players are now dedicated to giving their best as we all are now thinking of changing our standard of play rather than thinking of winning or losing," said Rahmat. "Jaime inserted a mantra of 'win together, lose together and stay together' and we all are following it."