Bangladesh women footballers returned to training as a group after six long months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Women’s Football League got suspended in March this year following which the booters passed an idle time in their respective hometowns and districts.
Ahead of the qualifiers of the AFC 2022 U-20 Women’s Championship and AFC 2022 U-17 Women’s Championship, the Bangladesh girls trained at BFF House in Motijheel under the guidance of women’s football team head coach Golam Rabbani Choton.
Bangladesh are bidding to host the qualifiers of the two tournaments, scheduled to be held next year in March-April.
Choton said they want to qualify for the finals of the two competitions and keeping that in mind, wants to improve the fitness of the women footballers, who got the green signal to train after submitting their negative Covid-19 test results.
“These one and a half months will be reserved for physical training. We will also work on their mental aspects because they were fearful of Covid-19 recently. We will also look at their technical skills, but it will be done later. It is imperative now to make them strong mentally,” said Choton in the sidelines of their training session at Bir Sreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Kamalapur.
Choton said his charges will require time to get back to their previous state of fitness.
“The girls were sitting idle for six months. Even then they trained on their own. Through online, we also kept in touch with them regarding their training process. But their rest period was a bit too lengthy, which is natural during this time. Going by what we saw during the training session, it looks like the girls will need four-six weeks to regain their fitness,” said Choton.
