'Tajikistan is better but we will fight'

Bangladesh captain Mamunul Islam believes Tajikistan is as good as Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh's first opponents of the World Cup and Asian Cup Qualifiers, but also that Bangladesh will give their best against Tajikistan to swing the result in their favour.

Both Bangladesh and Tajikistan lost their first fixtures 1-3 against Kyrgyzstan and Jordan respectively and are looking to putting the nightmare behind them and bouncing back in the next match on Tuesday at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.

"Tajikistan is a team like Kyrgyzstan. They play better football than Bangladesh. Tajikistan are ahead of us in all departments, but we want to display our best to bring the results in our favour," Mamunul told reporters, prior to yesterday's training session at the astro-turf adjacent to the Bangladesh Football Federation House.

The Sheikh Jamal DC midfielder also said that they didn't have not much information about Tajikistan, but they were analyzing the June 11 World Cup Qualifying match between Tajikistan and Jordan to learn about the Central Asian nation, who sit 27 places ahead of Bangladesh in FIFA Rankings.

Though Tajikistan are ahead of Bangladesh in terms of standards and previous records, Mamunul said that they would be fighting for points against all opponents of the World Cup and Asian Cup Qualifiers.

"If you look back to our last eight or nine matches, we played better football because we made the effort to do something. We never take to the field to hold the opponents, now we play for victory. Sometimes luck favours us, sometimes luck goes against us.

"We have tried to deliver enjoyable games from the start of the World Cup campaign. We will play for each point. We are going to play our second match day after tomorrow (Tuesday) and we will be trying to rectify the mistakes we made against Kyrgyzstan to win the game against Tajikistan," said Mamunul.

The lad from Chittagong wants to take inspiration from their 2-1 win over Tajikistan in the 2010 AFC Challenge Cup, but didn't want to dwell in the past as a lot has changed since, with Tajikistan boosting their squad by including foreign-based players.

Meanwhile, a 30-member Tajikistan squad arrived in the capital yesterday evening, just 46 hours before their match. The officials of Tajikistan refused to appear before media due to their tiredness following a 20-hour journey from Tajikistan to Bangladesh. The players are expected to have only one training session today afternoon.