Bangladesh will be looking to end their 2024 international calendar on a high when they face Maldives in their second and final FIFA international friendly match at the Bashundhara Kings Arena on Saturday. 聽 聽聽
The match is scheduled to begin at 6:00pm and T Sports will televise the match live from the venue.聽
Bangladesh鈥檚 hopes of getting a favourable draw in next year鈥檚 Asian Cup Qualifiers suffered a jolt when midfielder Ali Fasir scored for Maldives in their 1-0 win in the first match of the series at the same venue.聽
That was Bangladesh鈥檚 seventh loss in 19 meetings against Maldives, with eight wins and four draws since their first meeting in 1984.
In the first match, the hosts were unable to capitalise on their chances due to poor finishing despite dominating possession.
But Bangladesh coach Javier Cabrera believes that this time his charges will be able to score and win the match.聽
聽鈥榃e believe that we will be able to score this time... Again, expectations are high, the energy is good, and we鈥檙e looking forward to getting a win tomorrow,鈥� said Cabrera during the final training session at the match venue on Friday.聽
鈥榃e got a disappointing and painful result at the end, even though our performance was good in the first game. We had actually high expectations of winning the game.
鈥榃e analysed the situations [of the first game]. We reached the areas of the finishing zone; players reached there with good advantages and had enough chances inside the box. It is difficult to explain why we were not able to score on the other day,鈥� he replied to a query.聽
Bangladesh鈥檚 key midfielder Sohel Rana (Sr) also vowed to make a strong comeback in today鈥檚 match after suffering a defeat in the first match.聽
鈥榃e must look forward to winning the game tomorrow [Saturday], and I believe we have the capacity to comeback strongly,鈥� said Sohel.
鈥業f you look at the chances that we would say we deserved to win in the first game. But we could not avail any of those chances. We played well, and it is normal that no one will evaluate that good performance as we lost at the end of the day,鈥� he added.聽
Bangladesh are currently ranked 185th in the world, while Maldives are ranked 163rd.
