Focus on defence ahead of Qatar, India ties
After a day’s break following two FIFA friendly wins against Bhutan, the Bangladesh national football team began training for the upcoming World Cup qualifying matches against Qatar and India.
The Red and Greens will host Asian champions Qatar on October 10 before playing away against India in Kolkata five days later.
Having suffered a 1-0 defeat against Afghanistan in their first match of Group E, Bangladesh are at the bottom of the table with zero points, and things are expected to get even tougher for Jamie Day’s men against the two much higher-ranked opponents.
Qatar are 62nd in FIFA rankings while India are 104th. Bangladesh are the lowest-ranked side in the group at 187.
Even though Qatar were held to a goalless draw at home by India, the stats from that match is evidence of how much the home team dominated. The Asian champions had 27 shots in total against two by India while also dominating possession (68 percent).
It was down to some resolute defending and a string of superb saves from goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh that the hosts failed to score.
The Bangladesh coach knows what is awaiting his side and he will unsurprisingly revert to a defensive system despite 4-1 and 2-0 wins against Bhutan.
The coach wants his charges to be defensively at their best and do better with the ball if they get it.
“We have to be better than we have done on the ball, when you play a better team,” the coach told media after yesterday’s training session at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.
Veteran midfielder Mamunul Islam explained what the coach worked on in the first day’s practice.
“The coach is working on small things such as what should our first pass be after we get the ball, what should be the movement of our players after winning possession, etc.”
While stressing on man-to-man marking and counter-attacking strategies during training, Day said they need to defend well and do something when they win possession.
“If you look at all the games against Qatar, both teams (Afghanistan and India) have had to defend very well for long periods of the game. It’s going to be probably the same for us. We’re going to have to defend well and be hard to beat and when we get the ball we’ve got to take care of it and try to do as well as we can with the football,” the 39-year-old coach said.
However, ahead of these two matches defence has become the biggest worry for the coach, with full-back Bishwanath Ghosh suspended while centre-back Tutul Hossain Badsha and another full-back Shushanto Tripura are nursing injuries.
The coach will be having his fingers crossed to get the two injured defenders fit within the next two days before he announces his 23-man squad on Tuesday.
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