Bangladesh entered the SAFF Championship with little hope of making it to the semifinals, a stage they had failed to reach over the course of the previous five editions of the regional football extravaganza, and their poor performances in some recent friendlies cast further doubt on their ability to make it out of the group stage. However, Bangladesh did make it out of the group stage and advanced to the next round of the competition.
Despite this, Javier Cabrera’s players came out of the competition with their heads held high because they shown courage and consistency in all four of their matches. This self-belief was established after a valiant performance in the opening match of the competition, which was played against the team with the highest ranking in the competition, Lebanon. It was then further bolstered by two victories achieved by coming back from a deficit, against Maldives and Bhutan.
The squad then made sure to leave a lasting impression of their skills when they played against Kuwait, who looked to have been lucky when they scored the game-winning goal in extra time.
Cabrera, on the other hand, was having a hard time coming to terms with the defeat because of the manner his squad played for a whole game’s worth of time. However, he emphasized that this ought to be the standard, and that the difficulty would be to sustain it in the upcoming days.
“It is difficult to believe that we have lost. The crew has been doing really great work, both in terms of their performance and their consistency. “They were better today and created chances to qualify for the final,” the Spaniard said during the post-match conference at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium. “They created chances to qualify for the final.”
“From this point forward, this ought to be Bangladesh’s standard. It is unacceptable for us to operate at a level lower than this. It is imperative that we live up to this expectation. The 38-year-old said, “I am very proud of the team’s performance in the SAFF Championship, despite the fact that there were some challenging moments.”
Sheikh Morsalin might have given Bangladesh the lead in the second minute if he hadn’t received a square ball from Rakib Hossain and then fired straight at the Kuwaiti goalie. Rakib Hossain, on the other hand, was denied the opportunity to take the lead by the crosspiece and then by the goalkeeper Abdul Rahman Marzouq.
“We created chances against a team that is currently ranked first in the tournament,” the commentator said. They finished first in their group and are now undefeated in seven of their eight games. Today was one of those days where nobody had high hopes for their performance, but we were getting close to making it to the final. We had a chance to win the game in the first minute of each of the three quarters.
We were unable to apply more pressure to them in the second half, but I do not believe that they were able to create more scoring opportunities. “There is absolutely nothing to tell the players other than to take positives from the game,” stated Cabrera, who outshined previous managers like Nikola Ilievski, Maruful Haque, Lodewjik De Kruif, Jamie Day, and Oscar Bruzon by leading Bangladesh to the semifinals of the SAFF Championship. Cabrera led Bangladesh to the semifinals of the SAFF Championship.
The coach was of the opinion that one particular player could not be singled out for recognition because the consistent showings were the product of a solid blend of older players and young guns in the roster. Cabrera’s roster had over ten players who did not take part in the 2021 SAFF competition, and several of these players had limited experience competing internationally before to the regional competition.
The Spaniard continued by saying that they had one complete training session pertaining to defensive improvements and that the backline shown character, perseverance, and expertise as they thwarted Kuwait’s offensive surges.
“The victory was rightfully ours. Perhaps the coach of the opposite team will say the same thing. Yesterday, we had one session to make modifications and made a total of three to four adjustments. It is incomprehensible how they carried out the plan. It was great. Because I believe that we had the ability to win, I feel let down. But they should be proud of how they performed,” Cabrera remarked.