Time to start delivering

Bangladesh national football team begin a new journey when they take on Kyrgyzstan in the first fixture of the Joint Qualifiers for the 2018 Russia World Cup and 2019 UAE Asian Cup at the Bangabandhu National Stadium today. The men in red and green, who have shown unmistakable signs of improvement under Dutch coach Lodewijk de Kruif over the past two years, have had the opportunity to rub shoulders against some of the big names of world and Asian football, thanks to the new qualification format. Pitted in Group B alongside Australia, Jordan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan gives them unique chance to play these teams both at home and away, but it is also a test towards their stated aim of finishing third in the group, which would see them avoid play-offs for the final round of Asian Cup qualification. The team has had close to three weeks of preparation and played two warm-up matches, with mixed results. Now is the time for them to show the improvement and deliver the results. 

Today's opponents Kyrgyzstan are a relatively unknown quantity to Bangladesh even though these two teams have faced each other in 2007 and 2008. However, this Kyrgyzstan team, comprising a number of players plying their trade in foreign leagues and with a new Russian coach in charge, have not played a single match this year. As a result they have slipped below Bangladesh in the recent FIFA rankings. Bangladesh coach, though, is not willing to read too much into the rankings; rather he is keeping faith on his charges to deliver the goods in front of home crowd.

“What information we have gathered about Kyrgyzstan has been shared with the players and we have done what we had to in the practice sessions on the pitch. With everything in good spot, everybody is in good health, and good form, we do have a chance tomorrow (Thursday),” said a cautious de Kruif at the pre-match briefing at the BFF House yesterday.

Skipper Mamunul Islam shared his coach's confidence and vowed to not repeat the mistakes they made in the most recent friendly matches.

“We all gave our full effort because June 11 and June 16 is the most important thing for us. We did a lot of classes on mistakes (against Singapore and Afghanistan). Kyrgyzstan are a very good side but we want to produce something good as we will be playing on our home ground,” said the midfielder adding that they will take the field with the aim of collecting full points against the Central Asian opponents.

Bangladesh took the lead against both Singapore and Afghanistan, but failed to retain that lead, eventually losing against Singapore and being held by Afghanistan through a last minute equaliser. But Mamunul claimed they will try not to surrender the lead and go into the shell, rather try to kill off the game by going for a second and a third goal.  

However, that is not going to be an easy task. Kyrgyzstan may not have acclimatised to the weather conditions of Dhaka, being here for less than 48 hours and having had just a single practice session, but they are superior both in physical and technical aspects, as admitted by the Bangladesh team management.  But Bangladesh coach and his deputies believe that they have all the bases covered this time including the weakness in defending set-pieces which has dogged them for the last couple of years. 

Kyrgyzstan coach Alexander Krestinin believes their lack of match experience in recent times will not be a problem as they have played a few practice matches and trained a week in the United Arab Emirates before coming to Bangladesh.

“They (Bangladesh) are the home team and will play at their own ground which is why they will have a bit of extra motivation, but I think it will not have any impact on our performance. We understand that tomorrow (Thursday) will be a tough fight,” said Alexander.