Seven booters off to England
Seven players will miss the squad's first week of training with the preliminary squad of the national football team as they travelled to London, England yesterday to play a couple of exhibition matches for Dhaka Ekadosh Recreation Club.
The 42-memeber preliminary squad's fitness training was supposed to get underway tomorrow at the BKSP under the guidance of local coaches --Mahbub Hossain Roxy, Masud Kaiser and Parvez Babu-- and are scheduled to report to national team manager Satyajit Das Rupu at the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) house today.
The players who will feature for Dhaka Ekadosh Recreation Club are Mamunul Islam, Nasiruddin Chowdhury, Wali Faisal, Ashraful Islam Rana, Emon Mahmud Babu, Atiqur Rahman Fahad and Mohammed Saad Uddin. The booters did, however, take perminssion from the game's local governing body to take part in the exhibition matches.
“All seven players took the permission before leaving and are expected to join the fitness training camp on June 4,” said national team manager Satyajit Das Rupu. “Of seven players, five players just finished their club commitments with Abahani and asked for recreation time and we considered it because they have the individual lives.”
It was also learnt that all seven players are bearing all their own expenses for the trip, including the flight to England, a country they had never toured before. This excursion was approved before the preliminary squad and fitness training camps were declared.
“It is costly to travel to England individually and also problematic to get the visa, so we took the opportunity to travel with Dhaka Ekadosh and play a few exhibition matches,” said a senior player seeking anonymity.
The fitness training camp was initially supposed to begin on May 20 but since it has now been deferred for six days, it will get underway from May 27.
Meanwhile, the national team's newly appointed English coach Jamie Day is expected to arrive on June 8 and take charge of the under-23 squad and national squad for August's Asian Games in Jakarta and September's SAFF Championship in Dhaka.