Malaysian national women’s football team arrived in Dhaka last night to play two FIFA friendly matches against the hosts Bangladesh when they had also a practice session yesterday.
Bangladesh and Malaysia women will play two matches scheduled to take place on June 23 (tomorrow and 26 at the Bir Sreshtha Mostafa Kamal Stadium, Komlapur, Dhaka.
According to earlier schedule, the FIFA international friendly affairs were supposed to be held at the Sylhet District Stadium but due to devastating flood situation, hosts Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) was forced to change the venue.
AFC and FIFA also approved their BFF proposal of changing the venue considering the natural calamity in Sylhet.
Both the visiting and the home teams are taking preparations when both sides had their practice sessions yesterday.
Meanwhile, it would be the second time Bangladesh and Malaysia are facing each other when they met five years back in Singapore in a tri-nation invitational tournament.
Bangladesh’s long time coach of the women team, Golam Rabbani Choton before to go for practice session yesterday told the Bangladesh Post that he expected the matches would be very competitive.
Choton when talking to the Bangladesh Post said, “I think both teams are matured and experienced, I hope it would be a competitive match. In previous times we met Malaysia for once five years ago in Singapore. Though we lost the encounter by 2-1 but it was very keenly contested match.”
“Last five years, after the match in Singapore, we played number of international matches, we have maximum players of that team in this squad who played in Singapore against Malaysia. So by this time our girls’ gained some experiences of playing international matches and I think now they are matured enough,” Chotong said.
About Malaysia team, Chotton said, “Malaysia are very strong side. Most of their players have better experiences playing international matches than ours, as the players’ age are 28 to 36 years. They are also above us in FIFA ranking when they are 88 and we are 45, so it’s clear they are better side in black and white than us. But I believe that ranking would not be a big factor, our girls will try to fight evenly and I expect it would be a very competitive match.”
“Girls are eagerly waiting to play the matches as after a long time they have the opportunity to play international competitions.”
About their preparation, Choton said, “We started our preparation for this matches right after the Eid vacation and I think we are well prepared.”