After suffering an 8-0 loss to the reigning world champions Japan in their first match at the Asian Games, the captain of the Bangladeshi women’s football team, Sabina Khatun, believes it would be unfair to compare her squad to the Japanese side.
“Japan is known to have one of the strongest teams in the world, and today [Saturday], their top team was victorious 8-0 over Argentina.
“It would be a mistake for people to begin comparing ourselves to Japan. “On Saturday, the captain said that those who understand football are aware of the differences that exist between the two teams.
Sabina was of the opinion that the team might have won by a narrower margin if they hadn’t committed so many careless errors.
“We conceded a couple of goals due to silly mistakes, but the way they play, the level of their fitness, and the speed they have can’t be compared with us,” remarked Sabina.
“If you compare the facilities that we have to those of the best teams in the world, we have nothing to say. “There is no alternative to playing matches,” Sabina stated, despite the fact that having a training camp throughout the year is a positive thing. Even if you practice continuously throughout the year, your skills won’t improve until you also compete in actual games.
“Our experience against Japan could have been a little bit better if we had the opportunity to play two to three matches against big teams before the Asian Games. If we had done so, we might have allowed fewer goals to be scored against us.”
We really wanted to win this match against Japan. The football player from Satkhira predicted that his team’s quality and standard will rise if they were given the opportunity to compete against stronger opposition.
While the striker for the Bashundhara Kings believes that the match against Japan was the most important experience of her career, she acknowledges that her colleagues have a lot to learn from this game.
“There is absolutely everything to take away from this match because each and every second, as well as each and every minute, was a learning lesson for us. “We learned that the passes, crosses, and other aspects of their game are unique, and that is why they are former world champions,” Sabina remarked, adding that the experience against Japan will assist them in the future as well as on Monday against Vietnam.
Vietnam also competed in the World Cup not too long ago, and we will strive to do better against them. The captain of the Bangladesh team came to the conclusion that “I believe we can offer them a good fight.”