Sheikh Kamal International Club Cup is, without a doubt, one of the best things that could have happened to Bangladesh football this season but it is very unfortunate not to see the country's best players competing in the eight-club event.
Although champions from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are in the port-city to play in the tournament, the champions of Bangladesh, Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club, decided not to participate and as a result some of the top booters are missing out on some valuable experience.
The tournament itself will miss the sparkling runs of Bangladesh skipper Mamunul Islam and the splitting through balls from midfielder Jamal Bhuiyan. But more than that, Sheikh Jamal's awful decision deprived at least 13 national footballers from playing in the international tournament.
The Dhanmondi-based club are filled with top quality footballers and some of them are national team goalkeeper Shahidul Alam Sohel, Nasiruddin Chowdhury, Yeamin Munna, Rayhan Hasan, Yeasin Khan, Mohammad Linkon, Sohel Rana, Shakhawat Rony, Monaem Khan Raju and Toklis Ahmed.
Chittagong's own boy Mamunul was heavily missed and it reflected on a placard among the thousands present at the MA Aziz Stadium yesterday during Chittagong Abahani and East Bengal's match in the evening which said “We Miss You Mamunul”.
Earlier, the organisers claimed that Sheikh Jamal were the first club who they invited and although the club president Manjur Kader did not deny the claim, he said they weren't invited appropriately. Whoever's fault it was, it is the players and the game in Bangladesh that's suffering.
