A 35-member national preliminary squad will begin their preparations today for the forthcoming SAFF Football Championship which is scheduled to be held in Nepal from September 1-11.
The national preliminary squad will start their training camp in Dhaka and assistant coach Syed Golam Jilani will initially guide the players, while Arambagh coach Milon Mollah will assist him.
Bangladesh assistant coach Rene Koster will arrive in the capital on July 1 but the arrival date of Dutchman Lodewijk de Kruif, the head coach, is yet to be finalised.
The Bangladesh Football Federation is planning to appoint a physical trainer as suggested by the Dutch coaches.
A 25-year-old physical trainer named Mohammet Yamali will also come to Dhaka with Koster.
The national teams committee will observe Yamali in training before discussing his contract.
The 35-member squad, which is a blend of young and experienced players, contains several footballers who excelled in the recently-concluded Super Cup, a tournament which was reserved only for the local players.
Mohammedan striker Wahed Ahmed, winger Mobarak Hossain Bhuiyan and defender Tapu Barman, Sheikh Russell stopper Uttam Kumar Banik and left-back Nahidul Islam Nahid, Team BJMC midfielder Omar Faruque Babu and Brothers Union winger Yusuf Sifat are some of the young guns who impressed in the Super Cup to get a nod in the squad.
Meanwhile, two among three foreign-based Bangladeshi footballers, Jamal Bhuiyan and Anando Rahman, confirmed their arrival dates to the BFF.
Denmark-based midfielder Jamal Bhuiyan will reach Dhaka at 6:15pm on Saturday while Australia-based attacking midfielder Anando Rahman is set to arrive at 11:30pm on Sunday.
The arrival date of another foreign-based player Reasat Khaton is yet to be confirmed. The Germany-based midfielder did not inform the BFF when he will arrive in Dhaka.
Head coach de Kruif has picked three foreign-based players in his squad after observing them in a friendly match in the UK, jointly organised by the Bangladeshi expatriates and the BFF.
Before the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers got underway three years ago Jamal Bhuiyan was selected for a national team trial, but due to some complicacies regarding his nationality he could not feature.
When de Kruif learnt about him, he decided to call him up for a trial. Jamal is now playing for Denmark-based club Hellerup Bold Klub.
Anando Rahman was the top scorer in the Bangladesh Federation Cup, a football tournament organised by the Australia-based expatriates.
Before that, he played for Sydney City FC and Hurstville Zagreb FC in 2012.
Reasat Khaton is a midfielder, living in Germany. He plays for BV Cloppenburg, a German club in the fourth tier.
Meanwhile, the conditioning camp in Thailand might begin from July 20 instead of July 10, informed Abu Nayeem Shohag, general secretary of the BFF, on Thursday.
-With New Age input
