Bangladesh U-23 football team secured a well-played 1-1 draw in the second and last practice match to follow up the win in the first match of their 10-day Qatar camp, reported Bangladesh Football Federation.
After going down 1-0 to a penalty, the men in red and green came back strongly in the second half to earn a draw against Qatar’s Al Arabi Sports Club at the club’s home ground Grand Hamad Stadium in Doha on Tuesday night.
The young Bangladesh side played an open and forthright game right from the kick-off and created some good chances.
However, an uncalled-for mistake at the back gifted the hosts a penalty.
Al Arabi skipper Hassan Dad stepped up to take the spot-kick and drew first blood for his team in the 37th minute.
The visitors were trailing at the break but came back with intent in the second half.
When the game resumed, Bangladesh amped up their attack even more and it soon paid rich dividends.
#U23 want to finish #Qatar camp with a winhttps://t.co/iXe54QoH10
— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) March 18, 2019
Substitute Rokey netted for Bangladesh to draw level with the Qatar outfit in the 61st minute.
Bangladesh continued to tighten the screw on the Al Arabi defense but the hosts held on to the stalemate till the final whistle.
Bangladesh would be happy to have performed well in both practice matches registering a win and a draw; especially with the AFC qualifiers being set to begin four days later.
They will now head to Bahrain for the AFC U23 Championship 2020 qualifiers.
Bangladesh will play their first game in that tournament on 22nd March against hosts Bahrain. The other two teams that Bangladesh will have to face in group B are Palestine and Sri Lanka.
