Tohura Khatun was a delighted girl after netting a brace against a strong Australia, terming this as the best performance of her career.
The striker however, felt contrite about not having proper practice matches compared to the top continental football nations like Japan and Australia who they faced in the AFC U-16 Championship.
Bangladesh’s only scorer in the ongoing competition, Tohura finished as the top-scorer in three international tournaments when she scored 10 goals in the AFC U-14 Regional Championship in 2016 in Tajikistan, including a hat-trick against India in the final, eight in the Jockey CGI Youth Football Tournament 2018 in Hong Kong and four in the Saff U-15 Championship 2018.
Bangladesh girls made history in the AFC U-16 Women’s Championship 2019 by becoming the first team from the nation to get first ever point at the final round of the competition.https://t.co/x6hStzPdeg
— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) September 21, 2019
“I scored around 40 goals in different age-group international tournaments but of course, I would put the goals against Australian above any other matches I scored in before. It’s the biggest tournament but I didn’t feel like playing against such strong opponents when scoring the goals,” said Tohura, who was part of the team during the last edition but didn’t get the chance in the starting XI.
The BFF initially planned to send the U-16 team to England for a preparation camp but it later didn’t see the light of day as the federation seemed to be content with three practice games against the local teams in Thailand prior to the event.
Tohura added, “Our opponents like Japan and Australia are World Cup playing nations who prepared themselves for the tournament playing friendly matches in Europe. If we had such opportunities or something similar like that, we would have done better.”
