The squad won’t change much: Jamie Day

The national team’s preparation for the joint qualifiers of the 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Asian Cup are likely to get underway in the last week of this month as English coach Jamie Day is scheduled to return to Dhaka on August 19.

Day has finalised his 38-memeber preliminary squad, which has been sent to FIFA and AFC on August 5. There were very few changes from the squad that played the pre-qualifiers against Laos in June as the 33-year-old coach pinned his hopes on proven campaigners who know Day’s formations and styles.

“I have seen most of the [domestic] games from the UK and as I have said before, the top five sides [Bangladesh Premier League clubs] feature most of the Bangladesh [national] players. There are one or two who have done well recently from clubs lower down but the squad won’t change that much.

“The players who have played this year have not let me or the country down so far and have been very successful, so I don’t believe we need to change much,” Jamie told The Daily Star over an email exchange on Tuesday.

Day was unwilling to reveal the 38-member squad until an official announcement was made but it has been learnt that he may call upon a couple of new faces for the away match against Afghanistan on September 10.

Young forward Rakibul Islam of Rahmatganj MFS, who struck three goals in the league, is likely to make his debut in the senior side after representing Bangladesh U-23 team. However, national discard Toklish Ahmed -- who struck seven goals for Mohammedan in the second leg of the just-concluded league -- was not in Day’s consideration.

With Afghanistan yet to decide their home venue, there has been a bit of uncertainty about where the team’s training camp abroad will be held as the team management wants to fly out for Afghanistan’s home venue straight from the camp.

National team manager Satyajit Das Rupu said that they have already talked to Qatar and United Arab Emirates about a short-term training block and have let those federations know that Bangladesh would want to play a couple of practice matches against local sides.

It is however certain that Day will have to start the preparatory camp without Abahani players as they will play the AFC Cup inter-zone semifinal play-offs against North Korea’s April 25 on August 21 and 28 respectively.