Bangladesh ready for Laos face-off
Dhaka, March 27: Bangladesh national football team is all set to face Laos in an international friendly on 27th March after almost 17 months of absence in the international scenario. The match is set to take place in the New National Stadium of Laos.
Regarding the much anticipated match, Bangladesh head coach Andrew Ord expressed confidence in his players saying that the team has 17 players who could all start the game and they are tougher and more resilient than before. “The staff has done everything possible to prepare the players for this game. We created the environment of a professional club in the national team camp. We tracked and monitored everything that the players do,” said Ord. The coach expects the team to implement the tactics they used in drills during the conditioning camp and secure a result to make the nation proud.
The assistant coach of the team, Mahabub Hossain Roksy also shared his thought regarding the match. “The match today holds a lot of significance. We got the full support from Bangladesh Football Federation to prepare well for the game. We are in a very strong position mentally to do well in the game tomorrow,” said Roksy.
The team looks well in shape and craving to snatch a result the nation deserves. Fitness coach Mario Lemos prepared the team by working with the players on and off the pitch. The diet of the players was also controlled so that they can improve their fitness levels and hit their peak performing ability. Lemos said, “We implement prehab sessions to prevent injuries, all the players that came injured were rehabbed and trained 100% with the team and we managed to train at high intensity without any muscular injuries during the 5 weeks of camp. We worked on a variety of aspects from balance, stability, strength, core, agility, co-ordination and speed.”
Although the captain’s name is yet to be announced for the match against Laos, the team looks hungry to achieve a result which would give them a morale-boost as it is their first international match in almost 17 months. Bangladesh centre back Topu Barman is also among the ones to have spoken about this match. With confidence booming from his words, he said, “Everyone is very fit now. We take this game very seriously. We hope to win and give the nation something to cheer for in football.”
On March 25, the national team of Bangladesh checked in at the Mercure Hotel in Vientiane after arriving at Laos. The team had two training sessions at the same stadium where they will be facing Laos. Before arriving at Laos, Bangladesh spent two weeks in Qatar, then two days in Dhaka before flying to Thailand where the team played two practice matches. Among the two matches, Bangladesh won the second match with a score line of 4-3 against Bangkok Glass FC whereas they lost the first one 0-1 against Ratchaburi Mitr Phol FC.
