Bangladesh team are ready to battle India in the final of the Saff U-15 Women’s Championship Saturday at Changlimithang Stadium in Thimphu, Bhutan at 7:00pm.
The girls took part in a recovery training session for around 39 minutes in the morning at the match venue Friday. The session took place under the guidance of head coach Golam Robbani Choton, along with technical and strategical director Paul Thomas Smalley.
The team also had a meeting at 8:00pm at a local hotel with Smalley and Choton for some tactical planning. Words of encouragement were also exchanged in the meeting, to keep the spirits high for the big final.
Choton was confident of coming up with a good result. “We will play our natural game as we have prepared for this for the last seven months. We have been able to execute our plans in the games so far. We will give our best effort to win the championship. This was our target when we came to play in the tournament. I hope everyone from the country will be with us and we hope to see their sustained support and prayers.”
Goalkeeper Mahmuda Akhter was very happy after winning the semi-final match against host Bhutan by a big margin en route to the final and echoed what the coach said.
“Now we are more serious and want to give our best against India. As a goalkeeper I will try to protect the goal as I did in the last three matches. Please pray for our team.”
Striker Tahura Khatun’s dream is to win the tournament. The clinical striker has scored in every game so far and wants to continue that trend.
“My dream is to clinch the Saff U-15 Championship 2018. I want to score in the final as early as possible as I did in every game so far,” said the diminutive forward.
Captain Maria Manda wants to put pressure on India and take the early lead.
She said, “We need to put pressure from the beginning and try to score as early as possible though India are good and they have some experienced players. But our target is to win the final and take the trophy for Bangladesh once again as defending champion.
