An opportunity lost

Bangladesh missed a great opportunity to qualify for the final round of the AFC U-16 Championship despite finishing second in Group E following a historic 2-0 win over Qatar on Sunday night.

Ten group winners and five best runners-up teams will qualify for the 16-team finals to be held in Malaysia next year. Winners of nine groups have already been decided with Group H qualifiers yet to start. Among the nine group runners-up teams, India are on top with four points while seven other teams including Bangladesh have three points each. However, Bangladesh trail the other teams on goal difference, thereby missing out on qualification.

Bangladesh fought equally against eventual group champions Yemen in their first match and created more scoring chances but conceded one goal from a counter-attack and the other from a spot-kick.

“We could have qualified for the finals had we scored some more goals in two matches. We have just missed a good opportunity to play the final round of AFC U-16 Championship which would have been a great achievement for the players,” said coach Anwar Parvez after returning from Qatar yesterday afternoon.

“We could have beaten Yemen had we not squandered some good opportunities. But we fought against them equally and at times we were ahead of them and created more chances. But we could not capitalise on those chances. We were also unlucky because the penalty awarded against us was not fair while we conceded the second goal in a counter-attack,” said Parvez, who however believes playing against the Middle Eastern sides was a big experience for his team who generally play competitive matches against the South Asian nations.

It is mentionable that Bangladesh posted their first win in the AFC U-16 Championship Qualifiers in 10 years since their 9-1 victory against Palestine in October 2007. Since then, Bangladesh endured a winless streak of 14 matches before the start of these qualifiers.

“It is a big win for Bangladesh football as we beat Qatar at any level for the first time. I think it was possible due to having some talented players in the squad. If we can produce such talented players regularly and keep them involved in domestic and international meets regularly, they can become members of senior national team in future,” said the former national footballer.