Local football coaches have been requesting early disclosure of league matches ever since the first professional football league was established in 2007.
This is so that the coaches may better prepare their teams for the games. These requests continued to be ignored until they became a reality in the fourteenth season of the Bangladesh Premier League, which came to a close on Saturday.
The just-completed league made it possible for teams to have a head start on planning, preparation, and execution of their training, travel, and other activities by publishing the schedules of both legs of the competition in advance. This made it possible for the teams to account for any interruptions due to overseas commitments or vacations.
UEFA License holder Maruful Haque, who has been quite outspoken in his desire for more advanced fixture scheduling, has described the league as being very well organized.
“The league was well-organized since the fixtures were disclosed a long time in advance. This gave the coaches the opportunity to finish their training cycle correctly in the period in between two matches, which is a method that is used elsewhere. “In the future, I believe that this system ought to be maintained,” Maruful said to The Daily Star.
The league matches were initially planned to take place exclusively on Fridays and Saturdays, while the games for the Federation Cup were played on Tuesdays. This gave the coaches the opportunity to evaluate the depth of their bench players during the Federation Cup matches. This allowed some teams the luxury of making seven to eight substitutions during Federation Cup matches, even though these games took place three or four days following league play.
When asked to explain the large changes in the starting eleven, Maruful said that the reasons were because “each club had different targets in league and Federation Cup.” They were aware of who their opponents were in each of the matches, as well as the goals they aimed to accomplish. As a result, the coaches abandoned their prior practice of selecting their starting eleven players in advance and instead offered additional guys opportunity to play right away.
The head coach, who is 53 years old, expressed his disappointment that there was a lack of rivalry for the championship, which he believed to be the consequence of an overall shortage of quality players.
“There was no fight for the championship race, despite the fact that there was battle for the second spot and for avoiding relegation. “In my opinion, all of the good players lined up for one team, which left the other teams to compete against one another,” said Maruful. It’s possible that the national team’s performance will suffer as a result of the lack of competition at the highest levels of the sport.
The veteran trainer is of the opinion that the effect of having players from other countries was felt in every position, not only in the striking position.
“This is occurring as a result of a decrease in the number of quality players across all positions, not just attackers. Foreigners were responsible for making the critical passes in the middle third of the field; foreigners played the primary roles in the defensive third; and foreigners were the ones who created scoring opportunities. According to the former head coach of the national team, who has been engaged with the professional league from its second edition, “there has been a significant decline in the overall quality of our football in comparison to five to seven years ago.”
Maruful emphasized that the time of matches should be rescheduled, that locations should be chosen that are closer to the capital, and that improvements should be made to stadiums, training fields, dressing rooms, and many other amenities. This was done so that the quality of the league could be improved even more.