Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) Football champions Bashundhara Kings suffered a frustrating 1-3 goal defeat against Maziya Sports & Recreation Club of the Maldives in their opening Group D match of the AFC Cup Football at the Maldives National Stadium in Male Tuesday afternoon.

This was the first defeat for the four-time Bangladesh champions  Bashundhara Kings against any Maldives Cub playing six matches since 2018 and also maiden defeat against Maziya SRC in three matches since 2021. 

Bashundhara Kings tasted the first victory in the very first match beating Maziya SRC by 2-0 goal in Male in 2021 and again beat them by 1-0 in Kolkata in 2022.

Badhundhara Kings made a flying start against the Maldivian Club outplaying New Radiant Club by 4-1 goal in a friendly match in Nilphamari in 2018 and outplayed TC Sports of the Maldives by 5-1 goals in the AFC Cup in 2020.

Earlier, Bashundhara Kings eliminated from play-off stage of this year's AFC champions league after conceding 0-2 goals defeat against stronger Sharjah FC of UAE.

In the day's opener, the Kings were miserably went down by 0-3 goal in the stipulated 90- minute, but a late goal by Mohammad Ibrahim in the added time enabled them to reduce the goal margin (3-1)  break their goal drought.

V Balabanovic opened the floodgate for the Maziya in the 15th minute against the flow of the match (1-0), Hasan Nazeem doubled the margin in the 68th minute astonishing the Kings fans (2-0) while Ali Fasir scored the 3rd goal silencing the Kings in the last minute of the match (3-0).

Mohammad Ibrahim scored the consolation goal for the Kings in the 3rd minute of the added time (90+3 minute).

Earlier, Bangladesh was placed in Asian Group D with Indian Super Cup champions Odisha FC,   Kolkata Mohun Bagan Super Giant of and Maziya SRC of the Maldives.

The Kings will play their first home match against Odisha FC on October 2 at 6 pm Bangladesh time at the Bashundhara Sports Arena in Dhaka.

In the next and 2nd away match, the Kings will encounter Kolkata Mohun Bagan Super Giant on October 24 at 4 pm at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, India.

Four teams of Group D will face each other six times on home and away basis and later the top team will qualify for the next round of the meet.