Football fever has gripped the people of Sylhet ahead of the second and final friendly match between the Bangladesh Under-23 team and the Nepal U-23 side in the north-eastern city as 80 percent of the total tickets have already been sold out yesterday afternoon. The organisers expect all the tickets to be sold out before the game takes place tomorrow.
Interest among local people has reached fever pitch following a superb display in the first match in Dhaka on Tuesday when the home side earned a convincing 1-0 victory over the visitors. The Bangladesh U-23 side will play their second friendly match against the Nepal U-23 team at the Sylhet Zila Stadium tomorrow as part of their preparation for the forthcoming 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea next month.
The venue has a capacity of around 25,000 seats and according to the District Football Association (DFA), most of the tickets have been sold out including all the VIP tickets.
“We gave the responsibility of ticket-related issues to a local event management group. They informed us that 80 percent tickets have been sold out by today (yesterday) afternoon,” said Mohiuddin Ahmed Selim, president of Sylhet DFA, yesterday.
According to Bangladesh Football Federation officials in Sylhet, there is a festive mood prevailing in the city ahead of the game with motorcycle rallies taking place to promote the game and urging people to throng to the stadium.
Bangladesh captain Mamunul Islam believes the enthusiasm of the fans will give them an added boost. “The victory was very important for us. The scoreline could have been bigger given the way we played the game. The best thing is we amused the crowd and their passion is providing us the mental boost that we need,” said the Sheikh Jamal midfielder yesterday.
Bangladesh’s Dutch head coach Lodewijk de Kruif received another boost as juvenile midfielder Hemanta Vincent Biswas’ injury, which he picked up during the last game, proved to be nothing serious and the Mohammedan player will be available for selection for tomorrow’s game.
The national U-23 side, however, experienced some difficult moments during their hectic journey to Sylhet yesterday as the bus carrying them took more than 10 hours to reach the city from BKSP, Savar.
Both the teams left BKSP at 9am yesterday morning but they could not take the Gazipur route due to a political gathering there and had to come back to Dhaka where they encountered the inevitable traffic jam. They then started off for Sylhet and finally reached the destination after 7pm in the evening. The overall journey took them 10 hours which is more than double the duration it normally takes in the other days.
The Bangladesh team will attend a practice session today at the Sylhet Zila Stadium.