The Bangladesh national women’s football team had their first real taste of football beyond the sub-continent when they suffered an enormous 9-0 defeat against Thailand in their first match of the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers at the Bangabandhu National Stadium on Tuesday.
Bangladesh proved far poorer in all departments as their 10-woman defense failed to contain the Thais. On the other hand, Bangladesh hardly created an attack of their own.
Bangladesh coach Syed Golam Jilani had earlier said that he would watch the first ten minutes before making a decision on whether to send her players forward. The first fifteen minutes went goalless, at that time the hosts managed to hold out the Thais through some desperate defending.
However, in the 16th minute, midfielder Nam Thongsombut tapped in front of the goal after the ball had slipped out of goalkeeper Sabina Khatun’s grasp. After the breakthrough, the Thais added three more goals in the first half and five more in the second half to confirm their status as favourites.
Nisa Romyen led the attack by scoring four goals for her team, including two at the fag end of the game.
The Thai goalkeeper walked around in front of the D-box for most of the time as Bangladesh strikers Sabina Khatun and Aumraching Marma hardly managed to break into the opposition half. Bangladesh also missed the services of their main defender Farhana Khatun through injury which made the task of containing Thailand even harder.
Bangladesh goalkeeper Sabina Akter made a couple of decent saves and the goal-bar came to the rescue a couple of times otherwise the margin of defeat could have been much higher.
Thailand took the lead in the 16th minute when midfielder R. Thonngsombut tapped the ball in as it slipped off the gloves of Bangladesh goal-keeper Sabina Khatun. Captain Naphat Seesraum doubled their lead in the very next minute while Nisa Romyen made it 3-0 with a long-range effort in the 28th minute.
In the 44th minute, Nisa added her second with a neat placing shot over Bangladesh custodian Sabina.
Substitute forward Boontan Annonghat hit her side’s fifth goal in the 52nd minute as her powerful shot from the left edge of the box left Sabina with no hopes of saving.
In the 64th minute, Thailand forward Sunisa Srangthong scored the sixth with a close range finish while the seventh goal was scored by Boontan Annonghat in the 79th minute.
Nisa Romyen completed her hat-trick in the 87th minute to make it 8-0 and she compounded Bangladesh’s misery by adding her fourth goal in second-half stoppage time.
Result
Bangladesh 0 v Thailand 9 (Nisa Romyen (28, 44, 87, 90; Boontan Annonghat 52, 79; R Thonngsombut 16; Naphat Seesraum 17; Sunisa Srangthong 64
-With New Age input
