Bangladesh girls crushed Lebanon 8-0 and took a giant leap to becoming the group champion of Pool F of the preliminary round of the 2019 AFC U-16 Women's Championship qualification.
Sajeda Khatun, Tahura Khatun and Shamsunnahar Jr scored two goals apiece to pick up their second win in as many matches at Bir Sreshtha Shaheed Sipahi Mostafa Kamal Stadium Wednesday. Anai Mogini and Rozina Akter netted one apiece.
Bangladesh beat Bahrain 10-0 in their first match but expected a stiffer challenge against Lebanon, who beat Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates 8-0 and 6-3 respectively in their previous games, but in the end the match was a once-sided affair as the girls in red and green created a host of chances.
Bangladesh, the top-ranked side of the tournament, started the match aggressively but they had to wait 14 minutes to break the deadlock.
Lebanon head coach decided to keep a high-line in the defence in order to set off-side traps but Bangladesh girls were fast and their wingers were skillful enough to put in perfect crosses to dismantle the plan.
Lebanon defence was also error-prone and Sajeda got the ball in a one-on-one position with the goalkeeper following a defensive blunder but she squandered the opportunity, kicking the ball wide of the post.
However, she opened the scoring minutes later, when she slotted home a neat drive after dodging the marker.
Tahura doubled the lead in the 20th minute when her shot from a Sajeda pass in the goalmouth melee deflected the goalkeeper before entering the post.
Akhi Khatun, the tallest Bangladesh player on the field, was a constant nuisance with her long through balls and Tahura received one of her crosses in the 23rd minute before placing a diagonal shot towards the goal.
Anai scored an identical goal, albeit from the right side, three minutes later to make it 4-0.
Akhi assisted another goal in the 40th minute and this time around, Sajeda utilised the neat cross by a powerful shot from inside the box.
Bangladesh continued the domination in the second half, despite Lebanese coach Hagop Demirijian making some tactical changes. Just into the second minute of the second half, Shamsunnahar Jr capitalised on a mistake of a Lebanese defender to bag the sixth goal and she made it 7-0 in the 63rd minute as she connected an acrobatic side volley to score of a Sultana cross from the left wing.
Rozina scored the last goal of the match in the 75th minute from a placing shot.
Bangladesh coach Golam Rabbani Choton was happy with the win but not complacent as he was thinking of the next match against the UAE, scheduled to be played Friday.
“We had a good victory but we also made some mistakes. We will work to reduce the mistakes in our next matches,” said Choton in a presser after the match.
Demirijian said he was expecting a defeat as Bangladesh girls are much better than any other team of the tournament and he was only eying to become the group runners-up so that they may keep their chances alive of qualifying as one of the best two runners-up sides from the six qualifying groups.
In the second match of the day at the same venue, Vietnam beat Bahrain 14-0.
RESULTS
Bangladesh U16 8 (Sajeda 14, 40, Tahura 20, 23, Anai 26, Shamsunnahar 47, 63, Rozina 75) 0 Lebanon U16
Vietnam U16 8 0 Bahrain U16