Booters begin Asian Games preparation

With only nine days left for the football event of the Hangzhou Asian Games in China to get underway, the Bangladesh men's Olympic team began their preparation Monday at the Bashundhara Kings Arena with the hope of achieving their best-ever results. 

Bangladesh coach Javier Cabrera will get three more days for training his troops in Bangladesh after which the booters will leave for China on September 15 before playing their first match against Myanmar on September 19. Then they will take on India on September 21 and play against hosts China on September 24.

Though Cabrera had the opportunity to see the national team, Bashundhara Kings, and the national U-23 sides in their international duty, the AFC Champions and AFC Asia Cup, and the AFC U-23 Asian Cup campaign respectively, he struggled to select the Olympic squad which allows only three senior players along with U-23 players to make up the squad.

Initially, Cabrera had included national team players like Jamal Bhuyan, Mohammad Ibrahim, and Alomgir Mollah and three more premier league players into the 22-member squad but the the coach decided to make six changes as he replaced them with Mojibur Rahman Jonny, Suman Reza, Shahin Ahammad, Jahid Hossain, Abu Shaeid and Shahidul Islam.

The men in red and green managed to get out of the group stage of the Asian Games football event only once before which was during the last edition held in Jakarta after handing Qatar a 1-0 defeat in their last group-stage match.
This time, Bangladesh have been pitted against hosts China, Myanmar, and India.

"We will go to China with our best intentions which is to perform our best. We know we have a very strong group but the main focus is to give time to these players, to be ready and get the best results in the competition. That is the main objective," Cabrera told the reporters before conducting the first session.

"We are very happy and excited about playing in such an important competition like the Asian Games. Obviously not all of the whole group is available but I think it's also good for those players who don't usually get that much time to prove themselves. With a lot of players away with Kings, and Jamal with Sol de Mayo, I think it's a great opportunity for this group to keep competing and training," said the Spanish coach.