The Bangladesh national football team returned from their eight-day Thailand tour yesterday and the players felt the trip helped them build on the team chemistry alongside gathering experience. Besides international friendlies they also urged for more isolated camps in the future as it helped them grow their technical qualities and mental fortitude.
However, head coach Lodewijk de Kruif did not return with the team as he flew to Holland for personal commitments. "He will be returning within a week and during his absence assistant coach Rene Koster will be guiding the national camp," said Kazi Nabil Ahmed, chairman of National Team's Committee.
The Red and Greens arrived in Dhaka yesterday evening after playing two practice matches in Bangkok last week. The visitors lost to Thai premier league club Osotspa Saraburi 1-2 in their first practice match, but bagged a 1-0 victory over Thai U-19 side in the second match. Both the goals for Bangladesh were netted by Shakhawat Hossain Rony.
The team trained at the Beckenbauer Football Academy and Rony, who came in as a substitute after 70 minutes on both occasions, said they had better training sessions in Thailand.
"Overall it was a great trip. The training there was a lot different and everyone was serious and concentrated on how to execute coach's lessons on the field. We also gathered lot of experience and I feel the more we play such friendly matches the more we will get better technically," said the Abahani striker.
"The coach said not worry about the result. We concentrated on implementing coach's words and we did it. We have not played international matches for a long time and I hope our finishing will get better in two weeks," Rony expressed.
National skipper Mamunul Islam also admitted that their Thailand tour made them stronger and helped build team chemistry, "This kind of tour is needed for the national team. It helped us gain experience and upsurge the team combination. The more we play the more we will be stronger mentally."
"We dominated both the games. We lost the 1st match because of some mistakes. We are happy because we played the way coach wanted us to play," added Mamunul.
"This trip helped us to adapt to different conditions. The training was very good. Those two matches were important for us to sort out our mistakes," said Wahed who featured in the playing 11 in both the matches in Thailand.
Meanwhile, Mobarak Hossain, who missed the second game due to calf muscle injury, is positive in coming back to action soon and said, "The trainer told me to join the training on Tuesday. Hopefully I will be back in a very short time."
After a rest day today the national players will return to their camp from tomorrow at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.
