Bangladesh national footballers held their closed-door practices for the 3rd consecutive day on Wednesday at the Bashundhara Kings Arena in the capital ahead of this month's eight-nation South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship 2023 in India.
Bangladesh will play a FIFA International Tier-1 Friendly with Cambodia on June 15 there and will fly for India on June 16 to take part in the 14th SAFF Championship 2023 to be held at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in the Indian city of Bengaluru from June 21 to July 4.
Read more: National footballers make first practices at Kings Arena on Monday
BFF vice- president-cum-chairman of the national teams committee (NTC) Kazi Nabil Ahmed MP met with the players and officials of the team and briefed them at the team hotel --- Dhaka Hotel Regency & Resort-- in the city on Wednesday morning.
BFF members Satyajit Das Rupu and Imtiaz Hamid Sabuj, and NTC member Manash Das Dhulu were also present on the occasion.
In the afternoon, another BFF vice-president Imrul Hasan observed the national team's practices at the Kings Arena.
Read more: Residential training camp of national football team underway
On Monday, BFF President Kazi Md Salahuddin visited the national team's first practice session and advised them to prepare themselves with a strong mentality to go for win, not to concede defeat before the match.
Bangladesh will make a complete closed-door practice session on Thursday (June 8) afternoon at the same venue.
Addressing the media after the day' s practice session, Assistant Coach of Bangladesh team Hasan Al Mamun said: “We are not worried about the fitness of our players, but we are thinking about the injuries of some senior players.”
Earlier, Bangladesh have been drawn in Group B of the SAFF Championship 2023 with top seed and invitee Lebanon, two times champions Maldives and Bhutan while Group A team comprises eight-time champions India, invitee Kuwait, Nepal and Pakistan.
Bangladesh, the champions of 2003, will start their SAFF Championship 2023 campaign taking on favourite and top seed Lebanon on June 22 at 3:30 pm at the same venue.
Bangladesh, who did not overcome the group stage barrier in the last five editions, will play the Maldives on June 25 at 3:30 pm and meet Bhutan on June 28 at 7:30 pm in their remaining group matches.
After the round-robin league matches, top two teams from each group will play in the semifinals on July 1 while the final is billed for July 4.