Day unfazed despite practice match defeat
The Bangladesh national football team are looking to avail goal-scoring opportunities in their second practice match for the Joint Qualifiers of the 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Asian Cup when they take on CSKA Pamir Dushanbe at the Hisor Stadium in Tajikistan today.
The charges of Jamie Day started their training camp in Dushanbe with a 2-0 defeat against Tajikistan Premier League outfit FC Kuktosh on Tuesday after reaching Dushanbe in the early hours of Monday.
Despite the defeat, the coach believes his team played good football in line with his desire and there was no need for a better performance against CSKA Pamir.
“[The performance of the boys was] very good, just what we needed. They boys played well,” was the evaluation of Day about the first match.
“We played well [in the first match], so don’t need to play better [in the second match]. Just may be take the chances we created,” Day opined through a social media exchange yesterday.
The coach fielded all the 23 players except for injured midfielder Mashuk Mia Jonny and goalkeeper Shahidul Alam Sohel against FC Kuktosh and he is planning to test everyone again in the second match ahead of the first qualifying match against Afghanistan on September 10.
On Tuesday, centre-back Riyadul Hasan played full 90 minutes while 10 other players were replaced in the second half. Abahani players, who joined the national team on August 31 following their AFC Cup inter-zone semifinal against April 25 SC, were used for only the last 25 minutes.
The British coach is not worried with the outcome of the practice match as he is seemingly focused on using these practice matches to finalise his starting eleven for the Afghanistan match.
“There will be no impact on the team due to the defeat because we are just using the matches to get sharper and prepared [for the main match of World Cup Qualifiers],” said Day.
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