Booters seek ideal tune-up for Qatar and India
Hosts Bangladesh will be eager to put in a dominant performance when they take on Bhutan today in their final FIFA friendly before squaring off against Qatar in their second match of the 2022 World Cup Qualifiers on October 10.
Today’s match will get underway at 7:00pm at the Bangabandhu National Stadium, with private satellite channel Bangla TV and state-run BTV carrying live telecasts of the game.
Although British coach Jamie Day had earlier said that the aim was to improve Bangladesh’s FIFA rankings by playing the friendly against Bhutan, he would certainly have special plans with one eye on the home match against Qatar and the away match against India on October 15.
The friendly will let the 39-year-old coach gauge the players’ fitness after a two-week rest following their first Qualifier against Afghanistan. It will also give him the opportunity to fine-tune the playing combination and test reserve players to keep them primed for unforeseen circumstances.
“We will make a few changes from the last game and the rest will be the same,” said Day after training at the Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium yesterday.
Right-back Bishwanath Ghosh, who has a yellow card from the Afghanistan game, is likely to miss the tie against Qatar duo while centre-back Tutul Hossain Badsha is still uncertain after a motorcycle accident and the coach will be looking to identify replacements should the need arise.
“The coach is not in favour of making many changes and wants to play those players tomorrow who will play against Qatar, but there may be a couple of changes,” captain Jamal Bhuiyan said.
In the first match, Bangladesh uncharacteristically dominated Bhutan on a muddy pitch to win by a big 4-1 margin. The dominance came as a bit of a surprise as Day’s charges were made to toil hard in a 2-0 win, with the second goal coming in the dying moments, over the same opponents at the same venue in last year’s SAFF Championship.
Nevertheless, the convincing win in the first friendly will be a boost for the hosts and Day and Jamal were focused on making it two in two against the Himalayan nation, who have had just one success against Bangladesh in 2016.
“We are hoping to put in another good performance and try and win. There are a lot of things we can take from both games into the Qatar match,” said Day, who yesterday worked intensively on set pieces.
Having praised Nabib Newaj Jibon highly, Jamal will bank on the forward in the second match to notch back-to-back wins.
“We are hoping to win the second match too. It is pleasing that a Bangladeshi striker struck two goals in a match after a long time and the team scored four goals. We are happy with the overall performance and of course we want to play much better and score more in the second match,” said Jamal
Bhutan striker Chencho Gyeltshen also praised Jibon but claimed the muddy pitch helped Bangladeshi forwards.
“Bangladeshi forwards are young and energetic and he [Jibon] was brilliant. Our defenders tried to stop them but could not find their balance on the muddy pitch. If the weather favours us, we will play our possessional football,” said Chencho.
“It is a friendly match and we hope to win at least one match. Let see what happens tomorrow,” said Bhutan coach Pema, who thought that Jamal Bhuiyan is a key player for Bangladesh as he controls the midfield and distributes to the forwards.
Comments