The under pressure Bangladesh side are eager to end their 19-month run without a win as they look to entertain the Rajshahi crowd and clinch the SS Steel International Friendly Series by beating Sri Lanka in their second and final match at Muktijuddho Smrity Stadium today. The match will kick off at 3pm and Channel 9 will telecast the match live.
The hosts were held to a 1-1 draw despite staging a dominating display in the first of the two-match series in Jessore that eventually raised fingers on the misfiring forward line. As a result Bangladesh coach Saiful Bari Titu is considering shuffling his playing XI from the penultimate encounter.
Titu hinted placing expatriate footballer Jamal Bhuiyan in the line-up as a defensive midfielder while Nasir is also likely to return to the starting line-up. Rising starlet Hemanta Vincent Biswas will undergo a late fitness test and he too has a strong possibility of making it into the starting XI while striker Mithun Chowdhury might be sitting out with all the changes taking place.
Home advantage is keeping Bangladesh ahead against their comparatively weaker opponents but having not won any international match since March 2013 is also working as a pressure, quipped Titu.
“We are under pressure. We should have won the first game but we failed to take the chances. We must take lessons from that game and pressure is good only when you take it as a motivation,” said the coach yesterday.
“It is a friendly match and though winning is important it is also important not to play defensively and turn the match into a boring encounter. I want two things – entertaining the crowd and winning the match,” added Titu who also praised the Lankans for their off-the-ball running and quick change in positions.
Skipper Mamunul also echoed the coach’s sentiments and said, “There is always pressure to win at our home ground. The way we dominated in the last 45 minutes in the first match, we did not do that in the last three-four years. Our target is to win tomorrow (today) for the people of Rajshahi and Bangladesh.”
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Serbian coach Nikola Kavazovic is expecting a similar game today while he also praised his counterpart Titu and his team.
“The same two teams are playing two games within three days. Probably it’s going to look like the first match. I expect very, very similar game. We saw almost perfect performance from the home team and Titu is an excellent coach, he saw our weaknesses so we must play faster, one-two touch football, better offensive-defensive transition,” said Kavazovic.