The qualifying round of the AFC Under-16 Women\u2019s Championship Group C matches gets underway today with hosts Bangladesh facing Iran at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.
\nA total of 22 teams split into four groups will take part in the qualifiers with four top teams joining the four semi-finalists of the last edition in the next year\u2019s final round in Thailand.Apart from Bangladesh and Iran, the other four teams of the Group C are \u2014 United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and Kyrgyzstan.
\nIn the opening match of the day, Chinese Taipei will take on Kyrgyzstan at 11:00am while UAE will lock horns with Singapore in the second match at 3:00pm and the match between Bangladesh and Iran will kick-off at 6:00pm.
\nBangladesh coach Golam Rabbani Choton, who has been guiding the team for the last two-and-a-half month, was confident of making a winning start.
\n\u2018Iran are a very strong and one of the best sides of the tournament. But we are also ready to offer them a big challenge,\u2019 said Choton during a pre-tournament press conference at the Bangladesh Football Federation House on Friday.
\n\u2018It will be a tough match and we will definitely play for a win. If we can win tomorrow\u2019s [Saturday\u2019s] game, it will boost our team spirit which will also help us to look forward for the final round.\u2019
\nIran coach Shadi Mahini wised to finish the campaign as champions.
\n\u2018All the participating teams came to Bangladesh to win and Iran are not different. We like to win and we want to become champions,\u2019 she said.
\n\u2018Our team is a mixture of Under-14 and Under-16 players, who played here last year in Bangladesh and some new talented players have been included as well.\u2019<\/p>\n

-With New Age<\/strong> input<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The qualifying round of the AFC Under-16 Women\u2019s Championship Group C matches gets underway today with hosts Bangladesh facing Iran at the Bangabandhu National Stadium. A total of 22 teams split into four groups will take part in the qualifiers with four top teams joining the four semi-finalists of the last edition in the next … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n