After their two-game FIFA friendly series against Nepal concluded in a tiebreaker, Bangladesh was eliminated from the competition. The second match was played at the Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Kamalapur yesterday and finished in a scoreless draw.
The women playing in red and green were able to play their first match on Thursday to a 1-1 draw, but they were defeated in the final penalty shootout by the visitors by a score of 4-2 and they celebrated winning the bragging rights to the closely contested series.
Sheuli Azim and Maria Manda were unable to convert their penalty kicks for the home team, although Shamsunnahar and Monika Chakma were successful with their attempts. Sabitra Bhandari, Hira Kumari, Deepa Shahi, and Anita KC were successful in converting their penalty kicks, while Nepal’s goalkeeper Anjali Thmbapa Subba was the only player to have her penalty kick stopped by Bangladesh’s Rupna Chakma.
In the annals of history, this encounter will go down as a tie between the two teams, even though Nepal currently holds the advantage in the head-to-head matchup by a score of 5-1 and five earlier matches have ended in a draw.
In contrast to the first match, which had a number of chances created by both teams and ended with Sabina Khatun giving the home team a lead in the 65th minute before Sabitra scoring an equalizer in stoppage time, the second match saw very few opportunities that could be considered legitimate scoring opportunities.
The majority of the time, the action was centered in the middle of the field, and neither side was able to establish a decisive advantage over the other. The head coach of Bangladesh’s national football team, Mahbubur Rahman Litu, made the decision to use the same starting eleven that competed in the last encounter despite a few players being sidelined with injuries.
Although the defense was able to hold strong despite the loss of Akhi Khatun, who moved to China a few months ago, the lack of decisiveness up front was felt once again due to the absence of Sirat Jahan Swapna, who has retired from football. Akhi Khatun left for China a couple of months ago.
When players like Krishna Rani Sarkar and Sanjida Akter moved up the flanks, it appeared as though the reference point had been lost, and it was very clear that Sabina and Tohura Khatun were not working together.
Litu, who was given the job of coaching the team in the absence of long-time coach Golam Rabbani Choton, expressed his disappointment that the team was without crucial players.
Since this squad has performed so well in the past, there are a lot of expectations placed on them. On the other hand, Akhi, Swapna, and Shamsunnahar Jr. are not on this squad. In the future, how will I be able to frighten those who oppose me? “When you have key players missing in those positions, you will have to suffer,” the stand-in coach stated after the game. “When you have key players missing in those positions, you will have to suffer.”
Ten months passed without a game for us. Our performance was affected as a result of that. In addition to that, there were injuries on our team. It is challenging to compete with such a piecemeal team, ” Litu continued. “
Captain Sabina, who is also the most experienced player on the club, stated that they had a precise plan for the tiebreaker, but it did not work. Sabina is a prolific striker and the most experienced player.
“We had some ideas on how the tiebreaker would work. In addition to that, we had trained appropriately,” Sabina explained. Because there were others on the team who were better at taking penalty kicks, I opted not to take one myself.
Sabina was of the opinion that the absence of a competitive match during the previous ten months had an effect on their overall performance.
Now that the series has been completed, Bangladesh will try to shift their attention back to their preparations for the Asian Games in September. However, because they do not have a consistent coach and are missing key players, they will need to put in a tremendous amount of effort if they want to repeat the feats that earned them the title of South Asian champions for the first time.