Bangladesh to face Bahrain Wednesday

Bangladesh will start their AFC Asian Cup 2023 qualifiers campaign as they face upper ranked Bahrain in their opening group E match scheduled to be held on Wednesday at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, reports BSS.

The match will start at 3.15pm Bangladesh time.

Addressing the pre-match press conference on Tuesday Bangladesh national football team's head coach Javier Cabrera was found optimistic after Bangladesh's fighting performance against Indonesia.

He said boys have been preparing for Asian Cup since 16 May and all are very positive frame of mind in the group and waiting for the first game against Bahrain.

“Their target is to compete every single game, every single training session and every single action, if we able to do that we will be able to compete against everyone,” he said in reply to a query.

Bangladesh's skipper Jamal Bhuyan said their preparation for the match has been good and every practice session has been good so far as the coach mentioned.

"We know it'll be a very tough match because if we look at the ranking, they (Bahrain) are the toughest team... and all of us are aware about this. The other teams take Bangladesh as their easy opponents, but the players have something in their mind. Hopefully we can stage some surprises," Jamal firmly said.

Bangladesh have failed to win any of their three games this year so far, while also drawing a blank in each of them.

A 2-0 defeat to Maldives in their first game of the year was followed by a pair of goalless draws against Mongolia and Indonesia.

Bahrain and Bangladesh have only ever met once before - in the 1979 Presidents Cup, with the Middle East side winning 2-0.

Bahrain have played in each of the last five editions of the tournament and will be looking to make it six appearances in a rows.

The middle East nation have completed a very good preparation ahead of their qualifying campaign with a pair of friendly matches wins over Myanmar (2-0) and Thailand (2-1).