In a country like Bangladesh where football’s popularity has long been overshadowed by cricket, participation in any international football tournament is a rarity. The regional Saff championship is obviously there but taking part in the Asian Games is another experience altogether. The Asiad football competition, often referred to as the continent’s World Cup, is no less charming for Bangladesh than the Fifa World Cup itself.
The 17th Asian Games being hosted by Incheon, South Korea is indeed Bangladesh’s biggest and toughest tournament in recent times. And the national footballers made it a competition to remember by registering their first win in this tournament after a long hiatus of 28 years.
The Bangladesh Football Federation reserved special attention for the tournament by providing the national Under-23 team a month-long, isolated training camp besides organising international friendlies against Nepal last month.
Expectations surrounding the Asiad were never there to begin with, given the fact that the teams in Bangladesh’s group are all ranked higher. The tournament’s favourites Uzbekistan not only occupy 51st place in the world rankings, miles ahead of Bangladesh, but are also ranked as the third best team in Asia. To achieve a point in Incheon from the three group games would have been labeled as a great achievement for the boys in Red and Green.
Bangladesh, however, confounded expectations right from the very beginning of their campaign. Against the defending Saff champions Afghanistan, Bangladesh posted a morale-boosting win, courtesy a brilliant long-range effort from skipper Mamunul Islam. Bangladesh suffered a defeat in their next game against the Uzbeks, which did not, however, scupper their hopes of progressing the next round.
The final group game against Hong Kong was a do-or-die match for them. The opponents knew that a draw would be enough for them to go through so it was never an easy task for Bangladesh. As a result, despite dominating the first half which ended goalless, Bangladesh went gung-ho for the all-important goal and instead, conceded the game in unlucky fashion.
Not only the encouraging victory against Afghanistan, the overall experience and confidence gained from the competition will inspire the footballers to perform similar feats in the future, opined Mamunul after returning home on Tuesday night. “Overall we played well throughout the event. Hopefully we will keep up the momentum in future.”
The Asian Games performance also aided the development of young footballers like Hemanta Vincent Biswas, Wahed Ahmed and Toklis Ahmed.
“I cannot tell you how much I learned from just being there. We played against tougher teams and came to know about our limitations and mistakes,” said an excited Hemanta yesterday.
Sheikh Jamal forward Toklis Ahmed Tonmoy on the other hand vowed to do better things in future. “We played well and the team spirit was very high. We could have done better in the last game but unfortunately we lost. If we play regular international friendlies I am sure we will become the best team in Saff.”
