The eight-team Bangabandhu Gold Cup International Football Tournament is all set to kick off today with the home side taking on Sri Lanka at the Shams-Ul-Huda stadium in Jessore. The curtain-raiser begins at 2:45pm and will be transmitted live on Channel 9 and Bangladesh Television.
After bowing out from the group stage in the recently concluded 11th edition of the Saff Championship, Bangladesh are looking to turn around their fortunes and build a good platform under the guidance of head coach Maruful Haque, who took charge of the team just before the Saff Suzuki Cup in India last month.
Unlike cricket, the Bengal Tigers possess a fine head-to-head record against the island nation in football as they have won nine of their 14 meetings till date. Keeping that in mind, the home side are eyeing nothing short of a winning start to the tournament.
Meanwhile, the Lankans have sent their team with the major focus on the forthcoming South Asian Games next month. They have nine new faces blending with eight experienced ones from the Saff squad. Having featured in the semi-final of the regional south Asian tournament earlier this month, Sri Lanka might be in the mood to experiment but the hosts will do well not to underestimate the opposition.
Defending champions Malaysia and Nepal arrived in the capital yesterday and headed straight for the south-western city while Bahrain are expected to land tonight. Cambodia and Maldives, in the meantime, are scheduled to arrive this Sunday. The last team in the meet, Bangladesh Olympic Team, will fly for Jessore tomorrow.
Jessore will host the first four matches of the Bangabandhu Gold Cup before the tournament moves to Dhaka. Match tickets for Jessore are available at 20 points of Jessore sadar and seven upazilas of the district.