A quiet homecoming

What a massive difference a month can make to the fortunes of and the perception regarding a team!

Last month, the Bangladesh under-18 women's football team were hailed as heroes as they returned from a triumphant campaign of the SAFF U-18 Women's Championship. They were received at the airport with garlands and sweetmeats upon their arrival, and were handed hefty monetary rewards by the Prime Minister.

In a matter five weeks, the women's national team, which is almost the same as the under-18 team, returned to Dhaka on Wednesday night, but to very little notice this time. They were whisked through the arrival terminal, although there were no prying eyes of the media or any football federation officials waiting to receive them.

And that was not unexpected at all, for they have gone through two devastating campaigns in the meantime -- the AFC U-19 Championship Qualifiers and the 2020 Women's Olympic Qualifiers. In the two tournaments where they were playing against full-fledged national teams, they lost four out of six matches, all by big margins, while managing a win against Tajikistan and a hard-fought draw against Nepal.

The two positive results were trumpeted by head coach Golam Rabbani Choton as 'historic achievements' even though the broad realisation of the team management is that these girls are not yet up for the rigours of a senior team.

The Bangladesh team that played in the latest tournament in Myanmar -- the 2020 Women's Olympic Qualifiers where senior sides participate -- featured eight players of the under-16 team, 11 from the under-18 team and one overage player. In the starting eleven of the three matches, at least five or six of the players were below 16 years of age and they were playing against some of the seasoned campaigners of the opposition teams, who were much older and physically a lot stronger for this stage.

Bangladesh lost their second match against India 7-1, with six of those seven goals scored by two of their stalwarts who have more than a decade's experience in international football.

Mahbubur Rahman Litu, the assistant coach of the Bangladesh team with almost a decade's experience in women's football, explained the defeat this way: "Some of the goals that we conceded were due to mistakes of the players. The first goal came from a penalty which was due to the mistake of our left-back Rituporna Chakma. But you can't blame her; she is still a player of the under-15 team. She played very well at the under-16 and under-18 teams but against such senior and experienced oppositions, she was helpless."

And needless to say, most of the others in the team were helpless as well.

Head coach Choton, in a message after the last match against Nepal, said: "The young Bangladesh team continue to reach milestones of immense proportions. In two weeks the team and players have created and reached two historical landmarks for women's football," adding that he saw bright future for the team in a few years if the good work is continued.

No matter how much trumpeting Choton does to paint a rosy picture of the future of women's football, even he would concede that the development that takes place at the age-group level, thanks to the Bangabandhu Gold Cup primary school tournament and the subsequent training by football's local governing body, is stunted or even reversed when the players reach the senior level.

The 7-1 defeat against India should be a wake-up call when one considers that Bangladesh had managed to hold the Indians to a draw just two years ago. While the Indian senior team has certainly become more experienced with their exposure to women's league and national team assignments, the Bangladesh senior team has only grown weaker.

Some of the senior players that represented Bangladesh in the 2016 SAFF Women's Championship where they drew against India -- goalkeeper Sabina Akter, midfielders Suinu Marma and Mainu Marma, former under-18 captain and centre-back Trishna Chakma and strikers Aumraching Marma and Mirona Akter -- have left football, in most cases due to being marriage.

The game's local governing body is committing to being more conscious about this issue currently as it is trying to convince the parents of these players to not get them married off at such promising stages of their career. Some of the players have in fact got into payroll of BJMC or Ansar and get a monthly salary to keep themselves interested in the game.

However, there is a more worrying trend which is perhaps not being addressed properly.

Many of the under-16 players are continuously outperforming the under-18 players. Some of the players who were part of the qualifying campaign and the final round of the AFC U-16 Women's Championship two years ago are losing their sheen. Four or five players of that team have already lost their place in the side while promising players, like Sanjida Akter, are losing their place in the starting eleven. Krishna Rani Sarker, the best striker of that time, hardly shows the same level of skill she did two years ago.

This is happening due to the fact that the focus was firmly on the under-16 team while the players above that age group had largely remained out of international matches even though they were training with the rest of the players.

Between February 2016 and November 2018, the senior team played only two matches -- during a three-nation tournament in Singapore in March 2017 where they lost both matches. As a result of the lack of matches, Bangladesh are not currently represented in the FIFA Women's Rankings and there does not seem to be much cause for optimism.

Even at home, there is no platform for these players to have match experience as the women's football league has not been held for the past five years.

Assistant coach Litu feels there is a need for the women to remain involved in competitive matches as he feels training is not enough to set them up for international matches.

"As coaches, we also want that our female footballers play in a league or any tournament domestically so that they can be more prepared for the challenge of international football."