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Old June 26, 2011, 01:16 PM
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TAKING A FRESH OATH: Booters at the national team's camp in BKSP huddle around their new mentor Nikola Ilievski in an oath yesterday, ahead of the double-legged World Cup pre-qualifiers against Pakistan. - The Daily Star -

Ilievski imparts pressing football

Football focus shifted from professional league to the world cup pre-qualifiers against Pakistan as all 24 booters practised for the first time under new Macedonian coach Nikola Ilievski at the Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protisthan in Savar yesterday.
The booters, who looked rather fatigued during the hour-long session due to the seven-month professional football league, said they wanted to keep their fatigue aside when they take on Pakistan, who will arrive in Dhaka today, in the home match on June 29 and then the away match on July 3 in Lahore.
“All the players are tired after playing a long league but we are determined to give our hundred percent in both matches against Pakistan,” said striker Zahid Hasan Emily after the practice session.
“We have had discussions among ourselves and everyone is committed to do something good against Pakistan as the advancement to the second round of the world cup pre-qualifiers will be something praiseworthy,” said Emily, who captained Bangladesh in their last international assignment in the AFC Challenge Cup in Myanmar.
Midfielder Mamunul Islam, echoing the sentiment of Emily, said the task would be a challenging one for them because they have been given short time to prepare for the matches.
“We are all concentrating on the international commitment and we know there is big difference between club-level football and international-level football. We all are focused to prove ourselves at the international level,” said Mamunul.
The national team will have another two days left to prepare themselves before the home match and it is yet to be found how quickly they can adopt to the new coach Ilievski's strategy.
Both Emily and Mamunul said that that the style followed by Ilievski, that of pressing football, is similar to the one introduced by former coach Zoran Djordjevic introduced during SA Games, and that they would not have much difficulty adopting to Ilievski's style.
“He prefers pressing football which we had learnt from Djordjevic. In this style you regain possession as soon as possible after losing it and I think we will be able to cope with his strategy,” said Emily.
It was seen during the practice that the coach preferred his players to release the ball as soon as possible and take his position while a defender or a defensive midfielder goes to the attack to strengthen the forward line keeping four defenders intact in the backline.
Ilievski is more or less happy after the session and apparently declined to mention whether any player drew his attention.
“The standard of Bangladesh football is not like that of Brazil and they don't have a player like Messi,” Ilievski said. “It is a game of eleven players and I prefer to emphasise on all of them, not just a single one.”

the daily star - link
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