New Delhi: The flagship event of South Asian Football (SAFF) Championship which kicks off from tomorrow at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium would see arch rivals Pakistan and Bangladesh lock horn in the tournament opener. Taken into consideration the past records and recent run, including their 2-0 upset victory over Lebanon in the return leg of the 2nd round World Cup Qualifiers in July bill Bangladesh as a clear favorites before going into the match.
“We have been preparing well for the tournament and also did play few international friendlies as part of our preparation for the SAFF Championship. We have had a good record against Pakistan and the team as a whole is feeling very confident before the match,” said the Bangladeshi skipper Md Sultan.
Bangladesh who won the tournament back in 2003 enjoys a six match unbeaten streak over Pakistan is aware of the fact that Pakistan would be fielding some great talents who play in Europe including the Bary Town FC Wales’ midfielding duo of Adnan Ahmed, and Atif Bashir , but however remains unfazed by it.
“We are not intimidated by any player whoever it may be. And talking about Pakistan fielding players who play in Europe seriously does not bother us as we have faced them earlier and beat them. So that is okay for us and all that we are concentrating on is playing good football and win,” added Sultan.
Bangladeshi skipper also said that they are not taking any unnecessary pressure and would adopt to a game a day policy. Bangladesh ranked 142 in the official FIFA rankings is the highest ranked team in tournament and this fact would surely add a lot of confident to their side.
Bangladesh’s Macedonian Nicolai Illevski, however refrained from commenting on his team’s pre-match strategy and said that he is not comfortable about talking about how his team would perform before any match. “I am not an astrologer and only an astrologer speaks before a match. We are here to play good football,” said Illevski. But going by his style of aggressive and attacking style it is quite evident that Bangladesh would go for the kill from the word go.
On the other hand, Pakistan’s Coach Zavisa Milosavljenic is quite confident of a good show but denied to be tagged as favorites. “We have been preparing for days now and the team has a good mixture of young and experienced talents. We would like to best within our capacity and play some good football,” said Zavisa.
But this statement was not well accepted b Pakistani skipper Jaffer Khan and he contradicted his coach saying that Zavisa is a newly appointed coach and does not have knowledge about our standards. “The coach is a new one and he has been appointed only a month ago so he doesn’t have much idea. I think the coach is yet to understand the team,” he said. “We have prepared well for the tournament and we will do well,” said Jaffer.
Jaffer denied being under pressure as they playing in India. “We feel no pressure and India is like our own country. Only weak pressure players feel pressure. Wemight have a new coach and a team but not weak,” added the Pakistani skipper.
Pakistan’s chances depend a lot on how their highly billed player like Adnan Ahmed, Atif Bashir and Rizwan Asif perform and also how they tackle Bangladesh’s key players like Zahid Hossien, Nasirul Islam and Jahid Hassan Emily.
Samikshan Dutta Choudhury
Indian Sports News