National football team’s Dutch coach Lodewijk de Kruif was seemingly happy with his forward line but not entirely satisfied with the overall performance of the players, who defeated Team BJMC 3-0 in the latest practice match at the Bangabandhu National Stadium on Wednesday.
Newcomer Wahed Ahmed bagged a brace while veteran striker Zahid Hasan Ameli grabbed the other goal from the penalty spot. All the three goals were created by bubbly winger Mobarak Hossain, who came in as a substitute in the second half while Toklis Ahmed also impressed with some of his efforts in the first half.
Mobarak, who plies his trade with Mohammedan, earned rave reviews from De Kruif after his involvement in all the three goals.
Wahed continued his rich vein of form but Mobarak was undoubtedly the best player of the match as he ran past the BJMC defence several times with bursts of pace and mazy dribbles that garnered lavish praise from De Kruif.
‘He [Mobarak] was very eager and maybe disappointed because he had to sit on the bench beside me. He plays with his heart, maybe not much with his head,’ said de Kruif after the match.
‘He has great power in that small body. He has very good dribbling skills, good crossing ability and also the ability to shoot,’ he added.
The Dutch coach was also happy with the involvement of Zahid Hossain and Sakhawat Hossain Rony, who came on to feature in the last 15 minutes of the game.
‘Zahid and Rony played 15 minutes. I’m happy they played to find the rhythm, not to show anything extraordinary because they need to be careful with their recovery from injury,’ De Kruif said.
This was the fourth practice match played by the national team under the watchful eyes of de Kruif and the coach
went on to say that he saw areas that need improvement.
‘In the first half I didn’t find the build-up play from behind that I wanted to see. But it’s good because it’s a practice match. We know what is wrong and we can talk about it,’ said de Kruif. ‘If you ask me whether I’m satisfied, I would say no. There is still a long way to go. But the practice match was the most important thing for us.
‘There are a lot of improvements to be made in the defence because they conceded a penalty kick today [Wednesday] and we gave them [BJMC] three to four 100% [clear-cut] chances,’ he noted.
De Kruif stated that he was also yet to finalise the number of members in his squad heading to Thailand for a ten-day conditioning camp, where Bangladesh will also take part in two friendly matches against the hosts.
‘I would keep it to 24, 25 or 26 [players] as it is, till we go to Thailand,’ said the Dutch coach.
-With New Age input
