Bangladesh Women booters face India today
Bangladesh Women’s team will face their formidable neighbour India in their 2nd Group C Asian Qualifiers match of the Women’s Olympics Football Tokyo 2020 to make a comeback from shameful defeat against hosts Myanmar in the opener.
The match will kicks-off at 2:30 pm Bangladesh time at Thuwunna Stadium in Yangon.
Touring Bangladesh, which suffered a frustrating 0-5 goals defeat against top seed Myanmar in one of the two opening day’s match of the four-team Group C last Thursday, will play Nepal on Tuesday (Nov 13), also at 2:30 pm (BST) at the same venue.
In another match of the opening day on Thursday, India played a 1-1 draw with Himalayan nation Nepal at the same venue.
Bangladesh Women’s team lost to India by 1-3 goals in the final of the last SAFF Women’s Championship in Siliguri January last year and conceded 0-3 goals defeat against the same side in qualifying round of the 2012 London Olympics in Dhaka.
Touring Bangladesh a have chance to qualify for the next round of the meet after the top seed Myanmar (FIFA ranking 44th) as group runners-up or as the best two 3rdplaced teams of the four-team group if they can beat their sub-continental rivals India and Nepal.
Bangladesh team held a practice session on Saturday ahead of the crucial match against India.
Ahead of the match against India, Bangladesh’s Head Coach Golam Robbani Chotan said, “We will play our 2nd game against India tomorrow (Sunday), India proved themselves as a good team at this level, they have a good number of senior players, who are also the South Asian Champions. Our team has also experiences of playing against teams like South Korea and Myanmar and our players have learnt a lot from their mistakes as well as gained experiences from those matches.”
“Sunday’s match will be a competitive and close one. We played many matches in the SAFF region. So our girls are ready to play their best to win the match,” Choton further said.
About their 0-5 loss in the first game against hosts Myanmar, Choton expressed his disappointment over the score line, but termed the loss a ‘very pragmatic one. “We are delighted of international exposeours of our players. We must continue to grow up through learning for improvement. We are young and a youthful team and shouldn’t expect too much from these players too early,” he added.
Ankhi Khatun, who has been frequent in the national squad for different age group’s international tournaments for more than a couple of year as a defender or sometimes as a midfielder, said, “It will be a very competitive match, India is a strong team having some senior players. We have also experiences of playing matches in international level. We are looking forward to our next game and want to win the match for our country by giving our best effort against India who are better than us.”
Myanmar is leading in the group table securing full three points from first match beating Bangladesh 5-0 while India and Nepal followed the leaders with one point each after playing 1-1 draw in their first appearance last on Thursday.
