Hindustan Surkhiyan Desk: Bangladesh will look to maintain their spirited show and ensure a semifinal berth in the SAFF Suzuki Cup when they take on a rejuvenated Nepal in the final encounter of Group A at the Bangabandhu National Stadium today.
The hosts are on top of the group with two successive wins over Bhutan and Pakistan, but they still need a point against Nepal to ensure a last four spot. A defeat against the Himalayan kingdom might send the hosts out, subject to Pakistan’s win over Bhutan in the day’s first match.
In that case, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan will have an equal six points, but Bangladesh might lose out on goal difference. However, the men in red and green will go through to the last four before the kick-off of their match if Pakistan fails to beat Bhutan.
Except for the last edition in Kerala, Bangladesh were in a similar situation ahead of their final group matches in the 2011 and 2013 editions, but they failed to beat Pakistan and Maldives respectively on those occasions, which ended their campaigns there.
However, this time around they look more confident going into the final group game against Nepal, who beat Bangladesh in the 2011 and 2013 editions, with two wins to their name.
English coach Jamie Day did not want to think much about the equations; rather he wanted his charges to play their own game like they did in their first two matches.
“We can’t lose but we need to play our own game and hopefully we’ll play well enough to get through,” Day said before a training session at the Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium yesterday.
Day rested all the players who started against Pakistan while training the remaining eight players as midfielder Atiqur Rahman Fahad is still nursing the knee injury he sustained during the match against Bhutan.
Today’s match is being considered as a tough one for Bangladesh as the Nepalese are comparatively faster than the Bhutanese and Pakistani players and they also have good scorers who can threaten Bangladesh’s defence.
“Nepal are a very good side, they are going to cause us problems. They were unlucky against Pakistan but they scored four goals against Bhutan.
“We can’t worry too much about their scores but the goal difference is troublesome. It’s going to be a really tough game,” said the 38-year-old, who believes it would be very disappointing if Bangladesh fail to qualify for the semifinals despite coming to this stage.
Day, however, can be pleased with the fact that his back four hardy made any costly mistakes while one of them has scored two of their three goals.
“The match against Nepal is more important than the first two matches because we haven’t confirmed the semifinals despite winning two matches. The defenders and the midfielders have to work hard, to be more cautious and alert with high concentration so that we don’t concede any goals and our first intention will be not to concede any goal,” defender Tapu Barman said, adding that the forwards must avail the opportunities they get during the match.
Right-back Bishwanath Ghosh is also appeared upbeat about creating an unbreakable defence to achieve the target of getting through to the last four.
“I’m confident about performing well against Nepal and leave the field with a victory,” said Biswanath.
