Bangladesh football team will depart for Malaysia tonight where they will play a friendly match against the south-east Asian country as part of their preparation for their highly anticipated 2018 Fifa World Cup joint-qualifying match against Australia.
The Red and Greens will practice at the Shah Alam Stadium in Kuala Lumpur on August 29 before flying for Australia the following day. Bangladesh will face the Asian champions at the NIB Stadium in Perth on September 3. They are scheduled to return to Dhaka following the same route a day after the big game.
A press conference was held at the BFF House yesterday where Dutch head coach Lodewijk de Kruif and captain Mamunul Islam expressed their thoughts and expectations regarding their hectic but an important tour which is followed by hosting Jordan for their fourth game in Dhaka on September 8.
“For us it will be a great experience to face an opponent like that (Australia). Good for our players. I'm looking forward to it. When we are ready facing Australia and come back to Dhaka then we face an opponent, where we have more chance I think, Jordan at home ground. It will also be a big experience because Jordan are a good team with high quality. But for us it's big challenge to show ourselves, represent the country. We are very motivated,” said De Kruif.
Australia are ranked 61st in the world rankings, and fourth in Asia, while Bangladesh sit at 170th place as the Dutchman did not shy away from admitting that they will adopt a defensive strategy.
“What we have to do is to make the pitch very close, very small, very compact. When they come in that area we have to attack them, very hard and tough, keep them from the goal, don't allow them come inside the box. Eighty-five percent of our tactics would be defense organisation. Because when we have the ball the only challenge we have this very quick transition moment and go for attack we have three-four-five seconds. In that moment if we lose the ball again, we have to come back again – very close and very compact.”
Despite the absence of veteran defender Nasir Uddin Chowdhury from the squad, who was withdrawn due to sickness, Kruif backed his current lot of defenders and said, “I have full confidence on two central defenders (Topu Barman and Yeasin Khan). It's a loss that we had to remove Nasir from the camp. But I have full confidence in [Atiqur Rahman] Meshu, Rayhan [Hasan] and [Mohammad] Linkon.”
