Salahuddin urges triumphant girls to increase training

BFF president Kazi Salahuddin has delivered some timely and essential suggestions to the high-flying Bangladesh U-15 football team girls. The BFF boss urged the girls to keep their feet firmly on the ground and focus on increasing their training, as well as put in more hard work in the next few years in order to take a place among Asia's top football-playing nations in future. As soon as the Bangladesh U-15 women's team returned home Monday night after winning the four-nation tournament in Hong Kong, Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports, Arif Khan Joy, and the BFF’s women's wing committee chairman Mahfuza Akter Kiron received and congratulated them with sweets and flowers at the airport. Straight after their arrival, a popular media channel also accorded a grand reception to the triumphant girls. The BFF chief met the girls at BFF House in Dhaka Tuesday, coming up with some valuable words to inspire the girls to keep up the level of performance at the senior level in the upcoming years. "It's good that you became champion after a lot of hard work but it is only the beginning of a long journey. You must keep one thing in mind, it is tough to reach the top but it is even tougher to stay there," said Salahuddin. "You are only 14, 15 years old, in the next four to five years, you have to practise six times more than what you are doing now. This should be your main goal if you want to compete with the world. Today many will give you receptions, gifts and several other things but this is nothing, this is only one paisa, compared to what awaits you in future. The whole world is waiting for you. Your journey has just begun. When your level of training increases by 10 times after four/five years, then you will be a real footballer." Also the Saff president, Salahuddin continued, "You see Sabina [Khatun] playing in the Indian Women's League. I want to see you too playing the leagues in Hong Kong, Japan, [South] Korea and if you can do that then today's gifts would mean nothing. Keep training hard for four-five years. Start from now. The training you have done today, double it the next day, then the whole Asia will know you by one name. This should be your dream." Salahuddin was the first ever Bangladeshi, male or female, to play in a foreign league in the mid-1970s when he featured for Hong Kong outfit Caroline Hill Football Club for one season. Salahuddin, at the beginning, admitted that it made him happy that the U-15 side's latest success came at the same city. At the end of his speech, he shared one of his stories in Hong Kong to make the girls understand the importance of consistently hard work in football. "When I first went to Hong Kong, I vomited in the first three days of training because of the amount of work I had to do. I was given water on those occasions and had to resume training immediately. After 15-20 days, I stopped vomiting. I'm sharing this with you because you may have to face such situation in future. You have a bright future ahead of you," Salahuddin explained.