Day believes Bangladesh can beat Afghanistan
Bangladesh football team’s head coach Jamie Day conceded that Afghanistan are a better side, both physically and technically, but his team can get the better of the Afghans if his players have a good day when the two sides meet in the first match of the second round of joint qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Asian Cup in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on September 10.
Bangladesh, currently ranked 182nd in FIFA, have not beaten Afghanistan, 33 positions higher than them, at senior level in the last four decades. The coach understands the magnitude of the challenge, but recent performances and his own method of work give him confidence.
“We’ve shown over the last 14 months that whoever we’ve played, we’ve given them a very good game – fitness-wise and with the ball, we’ve matched them. Yes, Afghanistan are higher in FIFA rankings and it’s going to be a very tough game, but it’s a challenge that our players are looking forward to,” Day said during a press conference at the Bangladesh Football Federation house yesterday.
The 26-member squad, barring the seven Abahani players, have been training in Dhaka for the last one week following a three-week break after the completion of the Bangladesh Premier League. Most of the focus in the last week’s training was on regaining fitness and on technical aspects. The team management will start working on tactical aspects, especially regarding the opposition team, once they reach in Dushanbe.
The coach will likely have a look at the Abahani players, who were supposed to return from their AFC Cup engagement in North Korea in the early hours of today, and announce his final 23-member squad in the evening ahead of tomorrow morning’s departure for Dushanbe.
The coach, however, is pretty satisfied with the overall condition of the players -- fitness and performance-wise – but he wants more in terms of goals.
“I’m happy with the back four and the midfield, and the forwards are working hard. I would be happy if we could get more goals. The task for [Nabib Newaz] Jibon and Motin [Mia] is to take the league form to the international game,” the coach said.
Whenever Bangladesh play against teams such as Afghanistan, one thing that comes into discussion apart from the technical aspects is the physical advantage that those teams enjoy. The Afghans are undoubtedly physically stronger and bigger than the Bangladesh players, but the coach believes that disadvantage can be minimised if the players do other things well.
“I don’t see it being a problem [the physicality of the Afghan players]. They’re probably a little bit bigger and stronger than our players, but in the past we played Qatar and Thailand under-23 teams, they were bigger and stronger than us too. We need to limit free-kicks and set-pieces where they can take advantage. We need to make it hard for them to score or get past you…… It’s 11 men and against 11 men and if our 11 men can play better than them, then we can hopefully get a positive result,” Day said.
Even though the gameplan for the Afghanistan match has not been chalked out yet, from the coach’s assertion it is obvious that the team will play counter-attack based football. “Counter-attacking football has worked pretty well for us in the past, but we want to have more to it. Most of the teams that we’ve played have probably had 70 percent of the ball. So we have to make sure we are organised, that everyone knows their job and we have to make sure when we get the ball we do something with it,” the England-born coach said.
The Bangladesh team will play two practice matches against two local clubs in Dushanbe as part of their preparation. The men in red and green will play against FC Kuktosh, the third-place finishers of Tajikistan’s top league last season, on September 3 before playing against sixth-place finishers CSKA Pamir on September 4.