Dutch duo pen deal

About seven months ago, Bangladesh Football Federation president Kazi Salahuddin said that the first key step in making the goal of Bangladesh qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar a reality was to bring in highly efficient European coaches. That first step has now been taken with the signings of Dutch duo Lodewijk de Kruif and Rene Koster for a two-year contract Thursday.   The deal will come into effect from July 1 when the Bangladesh national team starts their camp for the Saff football championship. Before that, the Dutch duo will stay in Dhaka until June 18 and watch the first five days of the Super Cup.   “We are very happy to come over and visit one week and then go back, then start of July, we will back again to start our job and preparations for Saff championship for the long journey. I thank BFF for giving us the opportunity to watch Super Cup so we can see our players again and scout little bit extra and come to a final decision about our selections,” said Lodewijk de Kruif in his first speech after signing the deal to become the 16th foreign national coach of Bangladesh.   National team committee chairman Kazi Nabil Ahmed disclosed the details of the deal. The wages will be as same as before. BFF will provide the Dutch duo two quality accommodations, one car for each, health insurance and six tickets a year with family.   “We (BFF) signed the final contract with the coaches. We brought them in here with a hope. We couldn’t produce good result in recent Saff football. This time we are hoping for a better display that’s why we signed up the coaches to start our work,” said the BFF vice president Thursday, after a joint meeting with marketing committee and national team committee. Salahuddin said they have officially started their mission for 2022 from yesterday and pledged to make it successful.   “From today, we start our processing for the vision 2022 Qatar World Cup qualifying with two foreign coaches and all the committee together on football federation. We promise from today that we will qualify for the 2022 World Cup. We are ready to do everything to make it happen.”   Lodewijk is still buoyant to bring Dutch school in the country. “We want to implement the Dutch way of football, that is how we start it,” he said.   Lodewijk will have two months to prepare his men for the Saff football, which will be played in September. “We have a little bit of experience with the team playing in Nepal. In the short period of time, what we can say that the players are very willing and adopting well, they want to change something, they want to put their name somewhere in the book.”   Another coach, Rene Koster, who was brought in to take the charge of the BFF football academy, said: “The U-19 team will also be playing a very important tournament in October. I think it’s the start of the future - may be they can play in the 2018 or 2022. We are also going to work on that in coming weeks and plan ahead.”