‘We don’t want to lose any matches’

Bangladesh women's football team is scheduled to fly to Kathmandu early morning today to play two FIFA friendlies against the Nepalese counterpart after setting their sights on remaining unbeaten in the AFC Women's Asian Cup Qualifiers in Uzbekistan.

And through these two FIFA friendlies -- to be played at Pokhara on September 9 and 12 -- the charges of Golam Rabbani Choton, who have been training for the past six weeks since the completion of Women's Football League, will return to international stage after their last international engagement during the SAFF Championship in March, 2019.

Following the preparatory matches in Nepal, Bangladesh will head to Tashkent to play two Group G matches of the Asian Cup Qualifiers against Jordan and Iran on September 19 and 22, respectively. The group champion will then qualify for the 12-team final in India.

"Important thing is that the girls have trained for six weeks together. Their improvement, particularly in fitness level, is evident from the statistics in the GPS device. They've also been focused while training which focused on both tactical and technical aspects," head coach Choton told The Daily Star last night.

"I've said before that we want to play competitive matches against Jordan and Iran because the girls worked really hard in training and this group have been together for quite a long time, so they possess good understanding between them. The girls won't step into the ground to lose and we also don't want to lose any of our two matches," added the 53-year-old coach. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the girls in Red and Green had to miss out some international meets, especially the age-group tournaments which were suspended or cancelled due to breakouts of the coronavirus.

"Now the girls have to believe in themselves that we can produce something good.  They shouldn't worry about the opponents because they are still younger compared to opponents' players. If they can keep faith in themselves, I believe they can produce something praiseworthy," said the successful women's coach, who also wants to produce good results against a strong Nepal.

"Of course, we will first want to sort out our weaknesses by playing the friendly matches but we know that good results against Nepal will improve our international ranking as well as inspire the girls to play better in Uzbekistan," concluded Choton.