Bangladesh take on Maldives in crucial match today

Bangladesh take on the Maldives in their crucial second group B match of the Bangabandhu SAFF Championship scheduled to be held Sunday at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru, India.

Private satellite channel T-Sports will telecast the match live. It kicks off at 4 pm (BST).

Bangladesh must secure points against the Maldives to stay in the tournament race, following their 0-2 goal defeat to superior Lebanon in their group B opening match held on Thursday last.

The red and green jersey holders showed slight improvement and fanned the hope of holding their superior Lebanon in that match, but defensive errors from Tariq Kazi and debutant Isa Faisal caused their downfall.

Bangladesh fought neck to neck with Lebanon till 79 minutes of the proceeding, but Hassan Maatouk broke their resistance to put Lebanon 1-0 up. In the sixth minute of added time, Khalil Bader scored another as Bangladesh's hope of any single point from that match shattered.

On the other hand, the Maldives made a winning start in the tournament beating Bhutan 2-0 in their first group encounter.

Hamza Mohamed opened the scoring for the Maldives from the spot kick early in the sixth minute before Naiz Hassan put the final nail in the Dragon Boys' coffin in the 90th minute.

However, in the sixth minute of stoppage time, Hassan Raif Ahmed was sent off for the Maldives, and he's now suspended from the clash against Bangladesh.

Before the Maldives match, Bangladesh's head coach Javier Cabrera said his team is quite positive after the Lebanon match. Both teams have a fifty-fifty chance and the team which would be united and fight harder will win the match.

The Spanish coach admitted that Sunday's match against the Maldives is going to be a crucial match for his team and they would not go to the field for one point rather they are looking forward to the full three points.

Defender Topu Barman also found confidence before the crucial match against the Maldives, saying, "I think we started well in the last match against Lebanon ... the effort which he had in the last match was not only to save any goal but there was also attempt from our end to score goals.

"I think mistakes happened, which is natural in the game. We had a group meeting twice after the Lebanon match and all are discussed not to repeat those mistakes and how to handle the Maldives. We're confident and want to do our job in the field tomorrow (Sunday)."

Topu said it's not all over yet for them after losing the match against Lebanon, rather they are now only focusing on the Maldives match and want to start afresh from there.

/KN/