Booters start training without test outcomes
Having spent a four-day Eid holiday, footballers and coaching staff wasted no more time to get started on preparation for June's World Cup Qualifiers for the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday even while they did not acquire Covid-19 test outcomes till afternoon after undergoing tests on Sunday.
In a quest to coping up with the warm weather in Doha, the booters sweated out beneath the sun for more than one hour on the primary day of training after coach Jamie Day conducted a yoyo fitness test of most 32 players, with majority of them achieving the mark.
"The players look very good in training because they spent a while with their friends and family. They did perfectly in the first program today and I hope they will look sharper within the next three to four days," said the 41-year-previous coach, who believes Bangladesh must give their best to get some good points in the rest of the three matches against Afghanistan, India and Oman.
"Obviously we will try to win all three games and we have to play extremely very well to do that because we will play against clubs who are ranked greater than us. We realize if we don't play our greatest, we can't win. We reviewed it yesterday [Sunday] and can discuss it within the next couple of weeks, in order that we can play our better to get some points," said Day.
"If everyone doesn't play 10 in 10, we can not win. If indeed they can play six or seven, we may draw and if they play significantly less than six or seven, then we stay where we've been. It is extremely hard to gain matches in Qatar but we will try to get points up to we can though we realize that people have lost our home advantage and the problem is incredibly hard but we are pumped up about the three matches."
Midfielder Manik Molllah is confident of doing something well found in Qatar.
"The fitness of the players is at an excellent level. So we've an opportunity to take action good if we can capitalise on working out properly because we've some time in hand before the start of Qualifiers," the Chattogram Abahani midfielder said. "Doing trained in hot weather right here will help us cope up with the weather in Qatar."
The initial plan was to keep all of the players at hotel through the Eid break, however the Bangladesh Football Federation allowed the players to invest time with members of the family before resuming the camp on Sunday.
However, starting training without getting test outcomes has apparently triggered well being risk to all the players, a predicament similar to August last year when 18 players had tested positive.
