Maldives clash a ‘final' for Bangladesh
Bangladesh earlier suffered a 0-2 goal defeat against superior Lebanon in their group B opening match of the Bangabandhu SAFF Championship and the Red and Green jersey holders need to win the match to stay alive in the championship race.
Bangladesh will take on Maldives in their crucial second group B match of the tournament scheduled to be held on Sunday at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru, India. National football team captain Jamal Bhuyan sees their crucial group match against Maldives as the 'final'.
"The match against the Maldives is very important for us. This is our final match," Jamal said.
"One of our vice-presidents also said this and we are now only concentrating on the match against the Maldives," he added in a video message through Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF).
Bangladesh earlier suffered a 0-2 goal defeat against superior Lebanon in their group B opening match of the Bangabandhu SAFF Championship and the Red and Green jersey holders need to win the match to stay alive in the championship race.
"I think we played good football against Lebanon, but we lost concentration in the last 15 minutes and received two goals, overall we were happy with our performance," said the Bangladesh skipper.
Replying to a question, Jamal said they are depressed about the result against Lebanon, but they want to forget the incident and focus on the Maldives match.
Bangladesh will need to score against the Maldives to get a point. Considering Bangladesh's performance, the forwards have had little success scoring in international matches in recent times.
Jamal also said that whoever gets the chance has to score a goal, the team cannot just depend on the strikers for that.
One of the senior footballers of the team, Sohel Rana, also agreed with Jamal's opinion by saying that they must get point against Maldives to stay alive in the championship race.