Bangladesh started their seven-day residential camp for the upcoming six-nation Bangabandhu International Gold Cup Football Tournament from Wednesday at the same venue.
But national coach Jamie Day and nine national coloured booters of Federation Cup Football Champions Bashundhara Kings joined the squad on Thursday.
Earlier, Bangladesh put in tough Group A, with holders Palestine and Sri Lanka, will start their campaign taking on Palestine in the opening match on January 15 at the Bangabandhu National Stadium here. They will play Sri Lanka on January 19 in their other Group A match.
The Group B team comprises, three South African countries --Burundi, Mauritius and Seychelles—and Burundi will play Mauritius in the opening Group B match on January 16 at 5:pm at the same venue.
Two top teams from each of the group will play in the semifinals with Group A champions will play Group B runners-up in the first semifinal on January 22 while Group B champions will face Group A runners-up in the other semis on January 23. The final match billed January 25
The participating teams will start arriving Dhaka from January 13. Defending champions Palestine will be the first team to reach Dhaka on the day.
After the day’s practice session, Bangladesh Coach Jamie Day told reporters, “We are focusing on attacking football and we will work on scoring goals in the next couple of days.’’
“Fitness is not a problem at all, because as played in the just concluded Federation Cup Football, but our main concern is fatigue, but they made good training today.”
“Booters who played a lot of games in the Fed Cup they may be a little bit tired and the players who have not played much games like Rakib Hossain and Arif Rahman are not tired. They are fit and fine.”
It’s good to see Tapu(Barman) back in the team. He was out of the team for long time (due to injury), but he proved his worth playing some good matches in the later part of the Federation Cup. We need to monitor him so that he doesn’t get injured again” Jamie added.
Asking about their target in the BB Gold Cup, the Bangladesh head coach said, “We played against Palestine in the semifinal last edition of the meet, so we know it will be a tough game. The match will be a test case for our players. “
“If we can able to beat Palestine, it will be a great achievement for us, if not, then the Sri Lanka match will be vital for our semifinal berth,” he said.
Bangladesh Captain Jamal Bhuiyan, who has recently tied the knot in Denmark, will join the team on Friday.
Team Manager Satyajit Das Rupu said, “Jamal is expected to arrive Dhaka today (Thursday) and will join the squad on Friday.”
In the latest FIFA rankings -- Palestine are in 106th slot while Burundi in 151st, Mauritius in 172nd, hosts Bangladesh in 187th, Seychelles in 200th and Sri Lanka in 205th position.
Earlier, Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) on last Monday announced a 23-member National Football team for the tournament beginning.
Jamal Bhuiyan will lead the team. Reliable defender Tapu Barman returned to the national squad after long time recovering from injury alongside new face cum promising midfielder of Chattogram Ahahani Manik HossainMollah while Biplo Ahmed and Yeasir Arafat were dropped -- for injury and off-form respectively.
BFF has also planned to bring one or two former world football stars during the upcoming Bangabandhu Gold Cup to create mass hype.
They have already shortlisted some of those world cup stars, including Brazilian versatile star Ronaldinho, Italian defender Paolo Maldini, Netherlands forward Ruud Gullit and forward Marco Van Basten and Ivory Coast forward Didier Drogba.
In the last edition of the meet in 2018, Palestine emerged champions beating Tajikistan by 4-3 goals in the tie-breaker of the final as their match ended in a goalless draw in extra-time. The hosts finished runners-up in 2015 conceding 3-2 goals defeat against Malaysia in the final.