The young Bangladesh girls will be relieved when they take on the United Arab Emirates on Monday in their fifth and final match of the AFC Under-16 Women's Championship 2017 Qualifiers at Bangabandhu National Stadium. The match began at 11am and BTV World is telecasting it live.
The reason to be relieved is no secret to anyone any more now but nevertheless, Bangladesh head coach Golam Rabbani Choton wants to treat the game just like the previous four matches where they strolled to victory comfortably.
The girls in red and green, who have a hundred percent record in Group C, have already qualified for the final round after beating Chinese Taipei 4-2 in their last match on Saturday so Monday's game will be a mere formality for the home side.
“Although the target has been achieved, we are yet to finish out group matches. The way we played in our first four matches, we will continue in the same way against UAE [Monday],” said Choton.
He added, “Here, all teams are same. Iran played superbly in the last three matches after losing against us in the first game. They have the opportunity to score the same number of points as us but we don't want to see that. We will field our best team.”
Ahead of their final qualifier, Bangladesh trained at the Bangladesh Football Federation's artificial turf in Motijheel on Sunday afternoon. Two key players of the team, captain Krishna Rani Sarkar and winger Sanjida Akhter were seen practising free-kicks most of the time. Like others, the attacking duo looked relaxed and enjoyed the session.
Meanwhile, the UAE U-16 team have a squad filled with most of the U-14 girls. They are guided by the most experienced coach among the six participating nations, Syrian head coach Azzam Ghotok, who already announced Bangladesh as the best team in the tournament.
Meanwhile, Iran will face Chinese Taipei in the day’s second match at 3pm while Kyrgyzstan will take on Singapore in the last match of the tournament at 6pm.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
