Saaf Football

**Tehsin** · #1 October 2, 2005, 08:41 PM

Bangladesh plays India, Nepal and Bhutan in Group A in the upcoming Saaf Games. The games will be held in Pakistan from December 7-17. With the new Argentinian coach and physio already running training for the national team, one hopes a repeat performance from the guys. Bangladesh defeated India in the Semis and went on to beat Maldives in the finals.

Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Afganistan play in group A. The top two teams from each group move on to the semi finals and the winners obviously play the finals.

*AsifTheManRahman* · #2 October 2, 2005, 11:20 PM

so we're definitely going to the semi finals. great!

now, say we do get beaten by india (personally, i believe it'll be a draw - both teams are more or less of equal strength). we will still have the advantage of facing a crappy team in the semi finals. thus we can make it to the finals, and eventually win the cup once again.

ok, maybe the word "crappy" was a bit over the line, but beating anyone other than india should be fairly easy if we play our natural game, imo.

btw tehsin bodda - eto early thread khullen je? ei thread to koydin por "haray jaibugui" (pardon my weak command of the language of the south east)

PoorFan · #3 October 3, 2005, 12:21 AM

Quote:

..ok, maybe the word "crappy" was a bit over the line, but beating anyone other than india should be fairly easy if we play our natural game, imo.

When BD plays against any other sub continent country, it's always hard to win! especially in semi or final. I don't know for exact, but BD did lost against Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and even Nepal several times in SAAF game.

tiger_man · #4 October 3, 2005, 12:39 AM

shouldnt this thread be in "other sports"..........??

*AsifTheManRahman* · #5 October 3, 2005, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by PoorFan
but BD did lost against Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and even Nepal several times in SAAF game.

yes, but not in recent times though (do correct me if i'm wrong)

ZunaidH · #6 October 3, 2005, 02:47 PM

Interestingly, Bangladesh is quite lowly ranked compared to some of the teams in the list. For comparison see below:

India -- 134
Srilanka , Maldives -- 142
Bangladesh -- 168
Pakistan -- 169

**Tehsin** · #7 October 4, 2005, 03:59 PM

We had George Kottan (I think he is Austrian) as our coach for the longest time. We did well during his time, he was well liked. The main reason he BFF let go of him was because they could not afford him and some of the BFF officials did not like him, the players LOVED him. He did come back to coach Muktijoddha in the middle/later half of the dhaka league this year.

The players are also excited about the new coach. The dhaka league was a success (considering what they have to go thru to plan/execute on of these thing in BD) and the top teams are getting ready for the national league. The players should have a chance to play some more competitive matches in the next couple of months.

The only thing we are lacking are Asian level players. We do have a few good players who should be good enough to take us to the Saaf final and win the championship and al but there's really not much to look forward to in the Asian level. We are still susceptible to big losses in the hands of Saudi Arabia, Japan and the like and we can't guarantee a win over teams like Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Maldives. *sigh*

Rubu · #8 October 4, 2005, 04:03 PM

BFF could not afford him but muktijodah can. that is quite interesting.

but BFF should have lot of money now gotten thanks (!) to tsunami.

**Tehsin** · #9 October 5, 2005, 10:40 PM

Rubu, yes, BFF did get a lot of money but I guess one of the problems those officials were having was that Kottan's payroll cut into their BHAG.

nighthitch · #10 April 3, 2010, 04:51 AM

sounds good to me