National football team leaves for Maldives for two Fifa friendly matches
Addressing a pre-departure press conference held on Monday at the city's local hotel, team captain Jamal Bhuyan said he expects a good outcome from the two friendly matches.
Bangladesh national football team left for the Maldives today to play the first Fifa International Friendly match against the Maldives scheduled to be held on Thursday (March 24) in Male.
A US-Bangla flight carrying the Bangladesh national football team left Dhaka for the Maldives at 11.20 am.
Addressing a pre-departure press conference held on Monday at the city's local hotel, team captain Jamal Bhuyan said he expects a good outcome from the two friendly matches.
Jamal said in the Maldives they would get big support and inspiration from expatriate Bangladeshi football fans living in Maldives and overall the players are fit and ready to do something good against the Maldives.
Jamal firmly said they want to take full six points from two friendly matches against the Maldives and Mongolia.
Commenting about the team's new head coach Javier Cabrera, Jamal said the new coach worked very hard for the team and witnessed many matches and studied about all the players. He is an exception compared to the other previous coaches of the team and he hoped the new coach would be able to show it in the Maldives.
National teams Committee's Chairman and Bangladesh Football Federation's(BFF) Vice-President Kazi Nabil Ahmed said: "We are hoping for a good outcome... The match is always something unexpected anything can happen, win or draw, but our effort will be on the pitch and make the best result that we can. We have 90 minutes to play as we ask all the players to give their full efforts until ninety minutes ... We don't want any untoward outcome in the end and want to get the desired outcome through hard work."
"Lot of players are playing sometimes from different competitions, you all know the team already participated three or four engagements last year. We did not utilize the January window due to the Covid-19 situation though the BFF's president was always very diligent so that the team can play the matches ... We have contracted various federations to utilize the March window and on that basis, the team is going to play Mongolia and the Maldives in march window," he added.
Team's manager Iqbal Hossain said the team made practice in the last two days and the players are well and fit.
He said the team would have another practice session in the Maldives before the match and he hoped to bring something good for the country.
Bangladesh will play the second friendly match against Mongolia on March 29 in Sylhet.