‘No difference’ between hosts’ pros and Seychelles’ amateurs

The amateur footballers of Seychelles attempted to cheer up their Bangladeshi counterparts, clapping and chanting 'come on men' while the dejected hosts walked to the podium after suffering a 1-0 defeat to the visitors in the second of two friendlies between the sides at the Sylhet District Stadium yesterday.

England-based defender Michael Ian Mancienne had struck the decisive goal from the penalty spot in the 61st minute after defender Saad Uddin fouled Daryle Bertrand inside the box.

Although Bangladesh won the prior friendly last week by an identical 1-0 margin, the defeat in the second game was a momentous occasion for Seychelles, whose squad largely consists of part-time footballers that have full-time careers off the field.

Visiting coach Neville Both, who is a full-time PE teacher, was ecstatic with the result and afterwards rubbished the notion that Bangladesh's footballers were better.

"There was no difference between the two sides. Even if they are professional footballers, I didn't see any difference. The only thing was that they were playing at home, so we wanted to sit back and let them circulate the ball. As soon as they arrived in dangerous areas, they lost possession. So, no big difference."

Meanwhile, Bangladesh were left to rue their indiscipline, having also lost after conceding such penalties in the SAFF Championship and four-nation tournament in Sri Lanka.

"It seems like a joke that we lost to Seychelles," captain Jamal Bhuiyan said after the match. "We wanted to win but we conceded a stupid penalty again. We are repeating history by giving away stupid penalties. And we did it again. That's why they won the match."

Bangladesh coach Javier Cabrera drafted Robiul Hasan and Suman Reza in place of Jamal Bhuiyan and Aminur Rahman Sajib respectively, but the 192nd-ranked hosts failed to live up the billing against a 199th-ranked opponent that featured only two full-time footballers.

"The coach chose some new players for this match and I think they could not implement the game plan in the first half. But we dominated in the second half and created chances," said Jamal, who came off the bench in the second half.

Cabrera's charges look purposeless and could hardly threaten Seychelles, who opted to press and negate Bangladesh's build-up. Seychelles could not even create a half-chance before scoring the decisive goal.

"It was a huge fight because they are very, very physical and strong team," Cabrera said. "I saw important improvements from a tactical point of view and in terms of identity and ideas.

"To me the game was better than the first game. They performed well in every single department: defence, attack and transition. But we were not able to show consistency in terms of the result," the 37-year-old, who was unhappy with the overall performance, added.

"I am not happy because I believe we could have done better than what we did in both matches. We deserved to win both games and two wins would have boosted the boys," Cabrera said.

After going behind, Bangladesh sent on forwards Eleta Kingsley and Matin Mia but could not equalise despite getting a couple of chances.