National winger Zahid Hossain appeared at the BFF House yesterday but was too late to be officially interviewed by the Fact Finding Committee.
Zahid was due at the BFF House at 3:00pm but arrived at around 5:00pm as the committee members were about to leave. Chairman of the committee Badal Roy said they just had time to exchange greetings. Earlier Zahid was asked to appear before the Fact Finding Committee on Sunday but he could not be reached by any means.
Zahid explained the situation. “I am suffering from high fever and I was not in Dhaka, I was in Tangail and my mobile phone network does not work well inside my house, that’s why BFF failed to communicate with me. However I saw in the newspapers what was going on so I started from Tangail but there was traffic and I couldn’t arrive in time.”
Zahid underperformed in Bangladesh’s first Saff match against Nepal and was left out for the second game against India. He reportedly misbehaved with head coach Lodewijk de Kruif after being questioned about his performance in the match against Nepal. Zahid returned to the side for the match against Pakistan but apart from creating an early chance for Emily, he was failed to impose himself on the game.
Zahid seemed angry with the coach’s attitude. “I could not play well as the head coach did not allow me to play my way and because of that, I could not play well. I was also a little worried over the issue of taking money from two clubs and that might have also affected my performance,” he said.
Zahid thought that he was a victim of Lodewijk de Kruif’s whim. “I may not play under him in the national fold. He is a high-profile coach from a high-profile country and we are low-profile players of a low-profile country. How did he came to know that I had taken money from two clubs? When he brought it up, it made me shaky. Why didn’t he pick me against India? Everybody does not know how to play pressing football, I was trying to play how he wanted me to play,” said Zahid.
The winger also thought that excessive training contributed to the team’s failure in Nepal. “He made us work three sessions per day. We did not fully recover from the pressure. Mamunul was not there and I failed to make good combinations with other player and it also affected the team’s performance.
The Fact Finding Committee finished their investigation by interviewing forward Shakahwat Hossian Rony, who appeared before Zahid.