'Our best ever performance'

Bangladesh coach Golam Rabbani Choton said that the match against Australia in the AFC U-16 Women's Championship was the best performance the Bangladesh U-16 women's team had ever put up.

Bangladesh conceded two late goals in a span of six minutes to surrender the lead and thus suffered a 3-2 defeat to mighty Australia in an enthralling encounter following defeats against Japan and North Korea.

“Despite being reduced to 10 players, what the girls put up on the field was their best ever performance I have seen because they showed good display from the beginning and never thought of against whom they were playing though it was Australia who are the sixth in FIFA women's ranking,” said Choton, who has been involved with women's football in the country for at least 10 years.

It was all but beyond everyone's expectations that Bangladesh would be able to come from behind and take the lead, with 10 payers no less. Bangladesh, who are 100 places behind Australia in FIFA women's rankings, were just 15 minutes away from pulling off a huge win had they held the margin against the side they were facing for the first time.

“Actually we all were dreaming of a win, especially the way the girls were performing after taking the lead. We could have pulled off the victory had Krishna not been sent off,” said Choton. “Actually we fought against them neck-to-neck but made a few silly mistakes in the latter part of the game because the girls could not take the pressure to play with 10 players. They were probably tired playing 65 minutes against 11-player Australia.”

During the match, it appeared that Krishna pushed an Australian player twice after she had been fouled her in the middle of the pitch. Seeing this, the referee then gave Krishna her marching orders despite awarding the free-kick in favour of Bangladesh.

Choton also believes victory might have not slipped from Bangladesh's grasp had the best player from the match against Japan, goalkeeper Mahmuda stopped the equalizer by Kyra Cooney-Cross as Sanjida easily cleared the ball before Australia's Sofia Sakalis tapped in to snatch the win.

However, Choton said this performance against Australia is something that can be a positive sign for Bangladesh women's football. If they take these lessons forward and also if this group of girls are provided regular training along with better facilities, they can produce more good performance in the future.

Australia coach Rae Dower also praised Bangladesh's performance, especially goalkeeper Mahmuda Akter.

“We were aware of Bangladesh's performance after their first two-match performance. We started the match positively but Bangladesh showed up with a really fighting attitude throughout the game and never gave up. The goalkeeper [Mahmuda] made some world-class saves,” said Dower. “However, I brought two positive changes in the start of the second half and the players continued to press for the equalizer by holding the ball. Substitute Sofia did her job nicely.”