Rangpur: Bangladesh national football team is raring to take to the field against South Asian rivals Sri Lanka in a FIFA international friendly match tomorrow.
The friendly will kick off at 4:00pm at the Sheikh Kamal Stadium in Nilphamari on Wednesday, August 29.
Ahead of the friendly, a pre-match press conference was held at Hotel North View in Rangpur on Tuesday, August 28.
Speaking at the press meet, Bangladesh head coach Jamie Day said, “Our Olympic team played very well in the Asian Games. We went through tough training in the last 3 months and participated in some competitive matches too. With the young guns having some good results abroad, we now have a better squad to play with having some senior experienced players to accompany the newcomers.”
“We are eager to get a good result in tomorrow’s match against Sri Lanka at Nilphamari. This will be our preparation match for the upcoming SAFF Suzuki Cup 2018,” he added.
Observing that SAFF championship is a very tough competition, the coach highlighted that Bangladesh are not in the good position in the SAFF region according to the current FIFA rankings.
“In SAFF, our first target will be to win the group stage matches and then we’ll go step by step. Our boys are physically fit and we’ll give our best effort to clinch the SAFF title,” concluded Jamie.
Team manager Sattyajit Das Rupu said, “Please pray for Bangladesh team. Our team have good preparation because we do training, having some matches for last 3 month at Qatar, South Korea, Thailand and Laos. Having good result in Asian Games. We will try our best for having a good result in the SAFF Championship 2018 Dhaka.”
Player Shakawat Rony said, “We do a lot of hard training for last 3 month, now we are ready for doing good result in the SAFF Championship & in the Friendly match against Sri Lanka.”
Sri Lanka head coach Md Nizam Paker Ali said, “It will be a good match both Team want to win the match. We have good training for last few month at Japan & South Korea. We play another friendly match against Lithuania, result was good (1-1) draw. It will be good experience for us to play in new environment like in Nilphamari. Bangladesh having a good Team now & for Future.”
Team captain Subash Madhusan said, “We have a young team & having good preparation for SAFF, We also very happy to play this Match in Nilphamari against Bangladesh in new environment. Thanks to BFF for organized this match.”
