Bangladesh women’s football team vowed to give their best in the third edition of the Saff Women’s Championship 2014, scheduled to begin tomorrow in Islamabad.
A 29-member Bangladesh women’s football contingent including 20 players will leave here for Pakistan today to take part in the nine-day event. A physiotherapist, however, is missing from the 29-strong member list.
Although the tournament will get underway tomorrow, fixtures and groupings have not been drawn up yet. The organisers are hopeful of holding the draw ceremony today.
Bangladesh began their preparation for the regional women’s football competition under Japanese coach Norio Tsukitate on October 4. Following one month and five days of training, the Japanese coach was confident of exhibiting their full potential. This is the first time the national women’s football team will be guided by a foreign coach in a tournament.
“I tried my best in training. Our job is to try and do our best on the pitch. I don’t want to lose and I want to finish as champions,” said the Japanese coach in a press conference at the BFF House yesterday.
Skipper Suinu pru Marma said they are targeting reaching the final.
“Our first target is to reach the final. This time we had the best preparation camp. Fitness and practise was also better than before. We prepared ourselves in order to get success in Pakistan,” said Marma before adding, “We had problems in finishing before. Now we have improved a lot. This team are better than the one in the previous Saff Championship in Sri Lanka and better in every department.”
Out of the 20 footballers, six youngsters have been drafted from the national Under-16 squad that participated in the AFC U-16 2015 Women’s Championship Qualifiers and put in some impressive displays despite narrowly failing to make it to the final round.
Norio will be accompanied by three more coaches in the tour – assistant coach Golam Robbani Choton, goalkeeping coach Mahbubur Rahman Litu and Sukur Mohammad Totam while Aysha Zaman is the team manager.
