U-23s take on Nepal today

Nepal coach Jack Stefanowski (L) and captain Sagar Thapa are in midst of a discussion while others sit at the VIP lounge at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport yesterday after their arrival. The Nepalese team landed here four-and-a-half hours after their scheduled 4:40 pm arrival. PHOTO: FIROZ AHMED

The Bangladesh U-23 national football team are looking forward to making a winning start against their Nepalese counterparts when they face off in the first of two FIFA friendlies at the Army Stadium today. The match will start at 4:00pm and will be telecast live from the venue on BTV World.

Even though this is a match between the U-23 teams, arranged as part of preparation for next month's Asian Games, both teams have a number of senior national team players and will be regarded as a battle of pride between the two South Asian teams of similar strength.  The statistics are in favour of the hosts, who have won 11 times, losing six and drawing twice in the 19 meetings between the senior national teams.

However, ahead of these friendlies, defence seems to be the major concern for the hosts, who conceded as many as four goals in their last practice match against Bangladesh Army team. In fact, the defence failed to make any impression in all of the practice matches, and it expected that they will come under a lot of pressure against a speedy Nepalese side, who gave the Bangladesh a hard time in their 2-0 win during the SAFF Championship last year.

National team's assistant coach Rene Koster thinks the team as a whole failed to work not work together against the army team while some of the players including goalkeeper Shahidul Alam Sohel made too many errors.

"Defending is a job of not only defenders, but of the whole team. All the players have to help each other and defend together. I have talked to the players and identified the mistakes they made in that match," said Koster. "However, I have faith in my defenders, who are good and can continue to improve before Tuesday's match."

Koster said he is happy to get Nepal to play two matches in a week and his target is to win both the matches.

"They are equal opponents. They are much better when they are playing at their home ground but this time we are playing at our home ground which is why we have a big chance to win. The players are working hard and I have faith in my players," said Koster.

Koster informed that he would share information regarding the players, practice match, training, formation with head coach Lodewijk de Kruif after the latter arrives from Netherlands on the morning of the match day (Tuesday). Rene will talk to Kruif about what he saw in the last practice match, what he saw in training sessions and Kruif will pick the starting eleven.