Bangladesh national football team leaves for Maldives today (Tuesday) to play the first FIFA International Friendly
match against the Maldives scheduled to be held on Thursday (March 24) in Male.

An US-Bangla flight carrying the Bangladesh national football team is expected to leave Dhaka for Maldives at 11.20 am.

Addressing at a pre-departure press conference held today (Monday) at the city’s local hotel, team’s captain Jamal Bhuyan expects a good outcome from the two friendly matches.

Jamal said in Maldives they would get a big support and inspiration from expatriate Bangladeshi football fans lived in Maldives and overall the players are fit and ready to do something good against the Maldives.

Jamal firmly said they want to take full six points from two friendly matches against the Maldives and Mongolia.

Commenting about the team’s new head coach Javier Cabrera, Jamal said the new coach worked very hard for the team and witnessed many matches and studied about all the players. He is exception compared to the other previous coaches of the team and he hoped the new coach would able to show it in Maldives.

National teams Committee’s Chairman and Bangladesh Football Federation’s (BFF) Vice-President Kazi Nabil Ahmed said: “We are hoping for a good outcome… Match is always something unexpected anything can happen lose, win or draw, buy our effort will be on the pitch and make the best result that we can … We have 90 minutes to play as we ask all the players to give their full efforts until ninety minutes … We don’t want any untoward outcome in
the end and want to get desired outcome through hard works.”

“Lot of players are playing sometime from different competitions, you all know the team already participated three or four engagements last year. Wedid not utilize the January window due to Covid-19 situation though the BFF’s
president was always very diligent so that the team can play the matches … We have contracted various federations to utilize the March window and on that basis the team is going to play Mongolia and the Maldives in march
window,” he added.

Team’s manager Iqbal Hossain said the team made practice in the last two days and the players are well and fit.

He said the team would have another practice session in Maldives before the match and he hoped to bring something good for the country.

Bangladesh will play the second friendly match against Mongolia on March 29 in Sylhet.