Another easy win for hosts

It was almost an action replay of the first game against Iran. Bangladesh played with the same attacking mindset and practically pinned Singapore down to their own half with waves of attacks in their second game of the AFC Under-16 Women's Championship's Group C Qualifiers at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

The only difference was that they scored almost double in a game where the home girls got more fans to cheer them. Their emphatic 5-0 win over the Singapore lightweights could have been bigger had the forwards been more accurate against an extremely defensive side with a very shaky goalkeeper under the bar.  

Captain Krishna Rani and substitute Anuching Mogini struck a brace each while Mousumi Jahan netted the other in a one-way traffic. They now share the lead with Chinese Taipei, who handed a 5-0 defeat to United Arab Emirates in one of the other two fixtures of the day. Iran put behind the Bangladesh defeat to win the other game 9-0 against Kyrgyzstan.

The unchanged home side dominated from the get-go and the charges of Golam Rabbani Choton created numerous scoring chances but failed to cash in on the early opportunities as Singapore 'parked the bus', keeping the home team at bay for nearly 40 minutes.   

However, winger Sanjida Akter posed a constant threat as the girl from Kalsindhur School exposed weak spots down the right flank time and again with her precise crosses to the forwards.

Sanjida repeatedly sent crosses in from the right flank until forward Krishna, who earlier squandered two open opportunities, broke the deadlock by heading a Sanjida cross home in the 39th minute.

Bangladesh then doubled the margin two minutes into the second half as Krishna received a cross from left-back Shamsunnahar inside the box and tapped it in to make it 2-0. Soon Choton sent on U-14 striker Anuching Mogini and Tahura to further strengthen the attacks.

Despite this, Singapore fought bravely to keep the margin 2-0 for the better part of the duration before conceding three successive goals in the last nine minutes.

Anunching made no mistake as she clipped in the third during the 83th minute after the Singapore goalkeeper failed to grip a powerful shot from Tahura while Mousumi found the back of the net with a well placed shot in the 86th minute.

Anunching then hammered in the last nail on coffin in the stoppage time as the girl from Rangamati again tapped one in from the goal-line after a Tahura header was parried.

“We have crossed another hurdle on way to our target. The positive thing of the match was we dominated Singapore from the first to last minute and I am happy with the performance of the girls though the margin could have been bigger,” said Choton at the post match briefing.

“We are creating many chances but we can't not avail those – it is a problem for us and we have to work on it. If we could have availed the chance we created in the very second minute, the girls could have played in a more relaxed mood and score more than what they had,” added Choton.

Nevertheless, Singapore coach Chen Cai Ying was pleased with the performance of her charges as they tried their best against Bangladesh and are improving match by match.