On Sunday, the Bangladesh national football team had their first training session in Bengaluru, marking the beginning of the third and final phase of their preparation for the SAFF Championship.
Before departing for Bengaluru, where the first match of the eight-team tournament will take place on June 21, Bangladesh successfully completed the first and second stages of their training in Dhaka and Cambodia between June 5 and June 15.
The guys who wore red and green faced a number of unforeseen challenges, such as a drawn-out immigration process as a result of the e-visas held by the team’s international coaching staff and less-than-desirable lodging at a hotel before they were moved to a different location, which ultimately assisted in their acclimation. The training session they had this afternoon was their first since their victory against Cambodia by a score of 1-0 on Thursday.
“We had our first training session on artificial grass today after coming here the night before the day before yesterday after a long flight and with weariness after the game in Cambodia. Today was our first training session on artificial turf. On Saturday, players had the day off to rest and recuperate, during which they met with the team physiotherapist. Today was the first day of training, and although it was only brief, the workout was really strenuous. We are now focusing on several aspects of our play that we can definitely do better at based on the games we’ve played in the past. In a video message that was given out by the Bangladesh Football Federation, head coach Javier Cabrera said that the squad is feeling fairly optimistic about the SAFF Championship and that everything is proceeding well.
Cabrera is now putting all of his attention on Bangladesh’s opening match of the Intercontinental Cup, which will take place on June 22 versus Lebanon. In addition, he is reviewing film from Lebanon’s matches against Mongolia and India.