After a barren first half, Bhutanese wonder boy Chencho Gyeltshen scored the match winner in the 65th minute of the match silencing high-flying Bangladesh.
With the shocking defeat, the gold mission of the Bangladesh team in the SA Games has now become uncertain after clinching games gold in 1999 in Kathmandu and 2010 in Dhaka.
India and Pakistan are not playing in the games football this time that created a good chance for Bangladesh to make a good fight for the soccer gold, but the defeat in the first game against Bhutan will harm their confidence for remaining matches.
Bangladesh were placed in the same group with Bhutan in the last SA Games’2016 and the match ended in a draw.
Before the SA Games, Bangladesh faced Bhutan twice on September 23 and October 3 in Dhaka and won both of the games comfortably. But they failed to repeat their feat in the ongoing SA games.
In the league basis matches, Bangladesh will face the Maldives on Tuesday (December 3) at 5:15 pm, Sri Lanka on Thursday (December 5) at 5:15 pm and hosts and defending champions Nepal on December 8 at 5:15 pm, all at the same stadium.
On completion of the league basis matches, two top teams will play in the final on December 10 at the same venue.