Bangladeshi female footballers face an uphill task when they take on Nepal in the semi-final of the first ever SAFF Women’s Football Championship at the Cox’s Bazar stadium today.
A win in the semi-final will set up a re-match for them against India, who had defeated the hosts 6-0 in the group stage. The defeat rubbed salt into the wound after their 7-0 loss to the same opponents in the SA Games earlier this year.
India, however, remained at their brilliant best thumping Pakistan 8-0 in the first semi-final on Monday. Bangladesh will start as underdogs against Nepal, whom they met only once and lost 1-0 earlier in the SA Games.
But this time the hosts are confident to change their fate.
‘Most of our players are in regular practice for the last six months and they have improved a lot. I hope we will be able to overcome Nepal this time,’ said Bangladesh coach Golam Rabbani Chhoton.
‘This is the knockout stage of the competition, so we have no choice but to press for a win. We will give all of our efforts to make it to the final,’ he added.
The coach also informed they will take a player-marking strategy to block some prolific scorers of Nepal so that they do not get enough room to shoot.
‘I know they have some good players who can decide the result of the match. I told my girls to look after them so that they can’t utilise their main weapons, which is the shooting ability.’
Nepal scored a total of 31 goals in the competition and conceded none in three matches while the home side registered only 11 against six in the same number of matches.
Meanwhile, in Monday’s first semi-final prolific Indian striker Bala Devi recorded her second hat-trick of the tournament to eliminate a comparatively weak Pakistan from the meet.
Apart from Bala, Gayatri scored two goals while Shashmita, Mandakini and Manprit netted one apiece for India. Shashmita is the leading goal-scorer of the competition with 13 goals including two trebles.
Pakistan goalkeeper Sayeda Mahpara got a laptop as the best player of her side, despite conceding 21 goals in four matches.
