Booters in Laos
When all the attention of the sporting fraternity of Bangladesh is firmly focused on the performance of the national cricket team at the ICC World Cup in England, the national football team will embark on a massively important fixture in Laos on June 6.
The booters will take on the hosts at the New Laos Stadium in Vientiane in the first leg of their double-legged first round for the joint qualifier for the 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Asian Cup. Five days later, the men in red and green would host the Southeast Asian nation in Dhaka in the second leg, with the aggregate result of the two legs deciding which team would go through to the group stages of the qualifiers and which one would be out of reckoning for those two competitions.
The charges of Jamie Day have had an encouraging build-up to the two matches as they spent ten days in a conditioning camp in Thailand where they played two practice matches against two Thai second-tier clubs – drawing the first one and winning the latter quite emphatically.
The team reached Vientiane from Bangkok yesterday evening and will train the next two days for the crucial encounter against Laos, who are ranked 184th against Bangladesh’s 188th in latest FIFA ranking.
Statistics would also be in favour of Bangladesh as they beat Laos at home late last year after having held them to a draw in a FIFA friendly in March last year.
While the Bangladesh team has been hamstrung by injuries to two crucial players – centre-back Tapu Barman and defensive midfielder Atiiqur Rahman Fahad – the recent results and performances suggest coach Day has enough options to choose from. Striker Nabib Newaj Jibon’s form and two goals in the last practice match from veteran Tawhidul Alam Sabuj and one from young Arifur Rahman will surely alley fears regarding potency in the attacking third.
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