Hosts Bangladesh will take on Bhutan today in their second qualifying match of the AFC Under-19 Championship with their preliminary target of finishing the Group-A as runners-up.
Group favourites Uzbekistan will lock horns with Sri Lanka in the other match of the day at the Bangabandhu National Stadium. Bhutan are familiar opponents for Bangladesh as they faced them two months ago in the SAFF Under-19 Championship in Nepal, where the men in Red and Green managed a 2-0 victory in the group stage.
Bangladesh, who begun their campaign with a 2-0 win over Sri Lanka on Friday, are hoping to repeat the same result today.
Bangladesh coach Saiful Bari Titu is not getting carried away after his charges’ previous success against the Bhutanese and also their 7-0 humiliation at the hands of Uzbekistan in their first match on Friday.
‘This Bhutan team is stronger than that of SAFF Championship as they have now included two national team players in the squad,’ Titu told reporters after a practice session at a Dhanmondi ground on Saturday.
‘I analysed Bhutan against Uzbekistan. Sri Lanka were defensive against us but I expect a little more pressing from Bhutan.’
Titu admitted they are still suffering with the scoring problems.
‘We want to win the game with a big margin but the problem is that even the national team has not won a game by a big margin for a long time.
‘So the problem is still there. We could have scored three or four goals against Sri Lanka and that would have been great for us,’ said the coach.
Striker Mannaf Rabby, who scored the first goal against Sri Lanka, was not satisfied with the performance of the first game.
‘We should have done better as our first match performance was not so impressive,’ said the forward.
‘We beat Bhutan 2-0 in Nepal. We wasted many chances in Nepal but this time we must be careful that we don’t miss many.’
Winger Mohammad Ibrahim expressed his confidence to qualify for the final round after beating Bhutan by a big margin.
‘Our main target is to play in the final round in Bahrain,’ said the Mohammedan winger.
‘We must repeat the same result tomorrow but this time we want to win by scoring many goals.’
-With New Age input
