Adapting to Bangladesh team challenge for new call-ups

Bangladesh football team's assistant coach Hasan Al Mumun believes it will be a challenge for the newly called-up players to adapt to the national team's playing style in the very short time before their World Cup Qualifiers against Palestine. 

The men in red and green are in Saudi Arabia for a two-week preparation camp ahead of the Palestine ties, on March 21 and 26 respectively. The charges of Javier Cabrera had their second day of training at the King Fahad Sports City ground in Al Taif on Monday. 

"If you look at the national team, it features more junior players than senior players. Our challenge is how quickly we can adapt the new players to the playing style of the national team," said Hasan after a two-hour long training session, which ended at 9:00 pm (Bangladesh time 12:00 am).

"It is also a challenge for the players, it is a challenge for both parties," said the former national footballer.

Mamun also said that coach Javier Cabrera wants to build a strong squad for the future, not only for the World Cup Qualifiers.

Mamun informed that coach Cabrera had separate meetings with each player to know their views and individual goals in a bid to make every player ready mentally and physically before the tie against Palestine.

The charges of Cabrera worked on two things - transition and finishing - in Monday's training sessions and learned how to stop Palestine and build up their own attack during the match. 

"We just started working on the technical part and will continue it until we face Palestine," he said.

Forward Rakib Hossain was happy after the training session with junior players and was optimistic about them.

"Training is going on in a good mood. Coach is showing us how we will play against Palestine, and how we can keep a clean sheet against Palestine. We are hopeful for something good," said Rakib.

He also added, "If they (junior players) can follow the instructions of the coach and maintain their focus on the game, we can expect something good."