Bangladesh to take on Palestine tonight
Bangladesh national football team will face strong Palestine in their away group match of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers scheduled to be held on early Friday at Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium in Kuwait. The match kicks off at 12.30 am (BST).
Before the Palestine match, Bangladesh skipper Jamal Bhuyan through a video message on Wednesday said: "Overall the training has been good because we have spent a lot of time together in the training camp and overall all have been very positive in the long camp."
"We want a good result against Palestine ...... we know what kind of team Palestine is ... We know Palestine are the strong teams in our groups and they competed very well in the Asian Cup .... We have to take this match very seriously otherwise we'll face big trouble," said the Bangladesh skipper.
Jamal said they will have to work very hard as Palestine is physically a much stronger team.
The midfielder also informed that they have to improve more of their set piece and crossing before the big match.
Jamal also emphasized to stick to their game plan and follow the coach's instruction.
Javier Cabrera, the head coach of Bangladesh national football team, is very much satisfied with the training camp in Saudi Arabia as he said the preparation of the team has been positive and all have been going on as per plan.
The Spanish coach said his boys have got enough time to prepare in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and there is no complaining about it.
He said even twenty eight players of the team are available and everything has been good so far.
Cabrera is also positive and confident with his team as he said his team is ready to fight to get a positive result against Palestine.
Commenting about their rival Palestine, Cabrera said Palestine is a very strong team as they also fought very hard against Australia losing the match 0-1 in the qualifiers. Palestine has very positive results in the Asian Cup with UAE, Hong Kong and Qatar.
Although the players of Palestine are physically superior to Bangladesh, coach Cabrera firmly said they would be able to minimize the difference and hoped for a tight fight against Palestine.
Ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qualifying match against Palestine, the Bangladesh National Team conducted an intensive two-week-long preparatory camp at the King Fahd Sports City Stadium in the Saudi Arabian City before heading for Kuwait on Sunday last to play their away match against Palestine.
The Jamal Bhuyan and Co. also played two preparatory matches there against Sudan in Saudi Arabia. Bangladesh drew goalless with Sudan in the first match and suffered 0-3 goals defeat in the second one.
Earlier, Bangladesh played two World Cup Qualifier matches against Australia and Lebanon last year.
Bangladesh suffered a 0-7-goals defeat against hosts Australia in their away match on Nov 16 and drew 1-1 with Lebanon in their home match in Dhaka on 21 November.