The Bangladesh national football team will face the Thailand Under-16 national side today in their last practice match at the Osotspa Stadium before returning home on Sunday.
Before the Thailand tour got underway, the Bangladesh Football Federation had informed the media that the national team would be taking part in a friendly against the Thai national team.
Later, the Thailand Football Federation refused to play their senior team against Bangladesh.
Bangladesh are in Thailand as part of their preparation for the SAFF Football Championship which will commence on September 1.
Earlier, the Bangladesh national side fell to a 2-1 defeat in their first practice game of the tour on Wednesday against Thai club Osotspa Saraburi at the Saraburi Central Stadium. National team’s Dutch coach Lodewijk de Kruif, however, was refusing to fret too much over the outcome of the practice match.
‘These are practice matches so I am not that concerned about the result. Rather I am focusing on the technical and tactical aspects and the mistakes of the players,’ said de Kruif adding that the opposition were much stronger than Bangladesh.
‘The opponents [Osotspa] are matured and very much organised. So we have to play better in the future,’ said de Kruif.
Meanwhile, the Dutch coach expressed his concern about his defence line as he stated that the defenders were yet to satisfy him.
Left-back Yamin Munna also noticed their own lacking in the back-four and said that they were trying hard to improve the bonding between them.
‘Our defenders play for different clubs so the understanding between us will get better as we play more together. We have been practising for a month now, so the team chemistry is improving every day,’ said Munna on Friday.
‘We are trying to initiate our attacks from the defence and the coaches are teaching us well,’ he added.
Central defender Ariful Islam, on the other hand, said that the national side were eager to learn from the mistakes committed in the first practice game.
‘They [Osotspa] are very organised and strong. We played according to our plan, however, they played with good maturity to beat us. We missed a couple of chances which turned costly for us. But it is good that we have identified the mistakes that we will try to overcome,’ said the veteran defender.
-With New Age input
