Bangladesh national football team players attend a training session at the Bangabandhu National Stadium on Wednesday. — New Age photo
Bangladesh will be trying to capitalise on the weaknesses of Qatar when they will host the Asian champions in their Group E second match of the FIFA World Cup 2022 and AFC Asian Cup 2023 joint qualifiers in Dhaka today.
The match will begin at 7:00pm at the Bangabandhu National Stadium when Jamie Day’s charges will look forward to playing their best to get a good result against Qatar at home venue, keeping their eyes on the ball for full time.
‘We worked on how we can stop Qatar and possibly trying to capitalise on their weaknesses and that’s what we have done [in training] last seven days,’ said Day at the pre-match press conference on Wednesday.
Bangladesh brought three changes to their squad as defenders Manjurur Rahman and Rayhan Hasan and forward Tawhidul Alam Sabuj got a call to face Qatar, who are leading the five-team group table with four points from two outings.
Defenders Sushanto Tripura and Bishwanath Ghosh , who played in a 0-1 loss match against Afghanistan in Dushanbe on September 10, were dropped from the squad while defensive midfielder Masuk Miah was left out for injury.
Sushanto also suffered an injury during Bangladesh’s second friendly match against Bhutan on October 3 while Bishwanath was ruled out of the game due to the booking he received against Afghanistan and Laos.
Day was optimistic that defenders would mitigate risks.
‘Every team wants to win and we will also want to win the game. Qatar will be expecting to win but for me, as long as my boys do their best and perform to the level we have shown, I can’t ask for anything more. If we get a little bit luck as well, then you never know,’ he said.
Day pinned hopes in long throw-in that Bangladesh used in recent matches to leave the opponents off-guard.
‘Any team that has long throw-ins especially what we have it gives opportunity to attack,’ he said. ‘It’s a weapon but obviously we have to be brave, aggressive and we have to attack the boys in the box. We have to make the right movement inside the box.’
After their first match against Afghanistan, Bangladesh held a 14-day training camp and also got some confidence boost in the recent two friendly wins against Bhutan, respectively by 4-1 and 2-0 margins.
‘We know it’s gonna be tough match. Boys have trained extremely hard last 10 days. We have good preparation as two wins against Bhutan gives us confidence,’ Day added.
Despite being aware of the gulf of difference between the two teams, Day was hoping to pull off a surprise.
‘In football, there are always surprise results. For us, we have to play extremely well, better than we performed recently. They have fantastic players, fantastic facilities. They are preparing to play Argentina, Brazil and England, so realistically they should be beating Bangladesh,’ he added.
Bangladesh captain Jamal Bhuiyan said they should rely on attack for goals.
‘If I get the chance to shoot I will definitely go for the goal but the match will be much harder. Qatar will play an attacking football. We will go for the counter.’
In their previous four encounters, Bangladesh suffered three losses and earned one draw against Qatar, who are currently in 62nd position in the FIFA Rankings, 125 positions ahead of Bangladesh.
Qatar started the joint-qualifiers campaign with a 6-0 win against Afghanistan before a goalless draw at home against India.
BTV and Bangla TV will telecast the match live.
Source: New Age.
