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Bangladesh possibly has been the most unfortunate national football team of this calendar year as they were denied a place at the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup by a sudden last-minute change of rules by the AFC.
The Bengal Tigers thought they had qualified as one of the best second-placed teams after recording six points in three games with a goal difference of +5 but the withdrawal of Brunei from Group E saw the results against the bottom-placed teams become null.
Thus Bangladesh’s 4-0 win over non-FIFA member Northern Mariana Islands didn’t count and Laos took their place at AFC Challenge Cup 2014 despite finishing with five points from three games.
“Can you imagine? That after having six points and securing qualification somebody calls and says that you have not made it through. It’s a very stupid rule (to change the qualification scenario) but that’s what AFC did.
“For six weeks we were very disappointed but we picked up ourselves up and its no longer in our minds now. It’s not that we want to do well in this tournament due to failure in the AFC Challenge Cup. We want to put up a good showing because we have prepared very hard and believe in our abilities,” said Bangladesh’s Dutch coach Lodewijk de Kruif at the pre-tournament press meet on Friday afternoon.
Bangladesh have a rich history at the SAFF Championship as they have won the tournament once and finished runners-up twice. But they failed to make it past the group stage in the last edition so despite repeated queries from Bangladeshi journalists, Kruif rightly played down his team’s chances of winning the tournament.
“We are here to win but one thing we have to note is that we are not favourites. India, Afghanistan and Nepal are favourites. Others are outsides except maybe Sri Lanka and Bhutan. We finished seventh overall at SAFF 2011 so there is no way we are among the contenders this time. But we will give absolutely everything in every game,” said.
Bangladesh take on Nepal in the tournament opener on Saturday and despite Nepal’s home advantage, Kruif will take heart from his team’s win over Nepal earlier this year in the AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers. However the 43-year-old gave a more realistic perspective.
“Of course playing in front of Nepal fans won’t be easy for us but earlier this year we defeated them in Kathmandu. I analysed that game and looking back I can recall that although we won 2-0, the score could have easily been 4-2 in favour of Nepal. It’s fair to say that we were lucky that day so its important not to reflect about the past too much and give our best tomorrow,” Kruif concluded.
