Treble winners of the season Sheikh Russell KC are inching closer to another milestone as they are just couple of matches away from clinching their fourth silverware of the calendar year. In search of reaching another final, Russell will take the field against a spirited Brothers Union side in the first semi-final of Grameenphone Super Cup at the Bangabandhu National Stadium today at 6pm.
Russell are the favourites against the lowly ranked Brothers outfit, but despite being teams of two shores the knock-out match is expected to be a tight one.
Russell played two foreign defenders, Bojan Petric and Abbas Inusah, in the league which was filled by Mamum Mia in Super Cup, but his absence, out with suspension, is expected to weaken Russell’s back line. They now heavily rely on in-form winger Zahid Hossain Chowdhury who scored twice in three games.
On the other hand, Brothers’ on-loan striker Jewel Rana is in terrific from and his combination with juvenile forward Yusuf Sifat is what the Gopibagh outfits will be looking forward to. Rana, making his debut in any professional tournament, netted three goals in same number of matches.
Russell arrived in the last stages as group A champions where as Brothers outplayed teams like Sheikh Jamal and Team BJMC to finish as group B runners-up. Russell saw the back of the net more than any other teams in the group stage, four goals in three matches, but their coach Maruful Haque still believes the finishing needs more improvement. The coach knows what their opponents are capable of, but he is still hopeful of his side making it to the final.
“Brothers have the capability to play in the final. Most of their players came from recently concluded Bangladesh Championship League so they are in touch with the game. But we are also prepared and hopeful of reaching the final and win our fourth silverware.
“In our previous three games our finishing was not that good. We need some tuning in that part and I hope tomorrow (today) our finishing will be better,” said Maruf. Maruf is however, not worried in missing out Mamun, who will be replaced by either of on-loan Chittagong Abahani defender Saikat or Murad, and said it is not a probem and they have “enough strength to replace them.”
Meanwhile, Brothers coach Mohidur Rahman Miraj said he wanted to face Russell in the semi-final as he has a different plan in store for the league champions.
“I wanted Russell in the semi-final. I have my own plan for the game and you will see. They (Russell) have all the top level players and even if we lose, there’s nothing to lose really. There will be one or two changes in the squad according to the strategy,” said Miraj.
Brothers manager Amer Khan said, “As I said before our initial target was to reach semi-final. Step by step now we are aiming to reach the final and win the cup. If luck favours us we will make it.”
