Since 21 October 2023, Bashundhara Kings are creating cinematic experiences for the fans one after another. It’s like a box office blockbuster. On 22 October 2023, Kings flew to India before the match day, did not do any practice session and snatched a point from India’s best football club team Mohun Bagan Super Giant playing in their home soil. In the return leg on 07 November 2023, Kings dominated the game for 90 minutes to record Bangladesh’s first ever victory over Mohun Bagan in International Club Competitions by Asian Football Confederation. On 27 November 2023, Kings made a historic comeback scoring 2 goals in 10 minutes to beat Maziya Sports & Recreation Club of Maldives, where the 2nd goal from Miguel Ferreira is surely going to get a nomination for FIFA Puskas Award.

Now if you see the above table, Mohun Bagan and Mazia are out of the competition. The match on 11 December 2023 against Odisha Football Club in Bhubaneswar is like a final to decide who are the best club in South Asia. Kings have two probabilities to achieve: win or draw. If Kings manage this, then they will top the group meaning they will be the only team to qualify for the inter zonal semi-final of AFC Cup 2023 from the south zone. A rare achievement only done once by a Bangladeshi club – Dhaka Abahani Krira Chakra Limited in 2019, otherwise it has always been the Indian teams. Now, the next match is not only important for Kings but also hugely important for Bangladesh Football. But to understand why it is so important, we have to dig deep into the Asian Football Competition Structure.

Now-a-days, we all know that UEFA have three competitions: UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Europa Conference League for the clubs of their 55 countries. Similarly, AFC have two competitions: AFC Champions League (where Cristiano Ronaldo plays) and AFC Cup (where Kings play) for their 46 countries. But from 2024 onwards, AFC is changing this structure. They are adding a new competition like UFEA and making it a 3-tier club competition. So, the competition names will be AFC Champions League Elite (tier-1), AFC Champions League 2 (tier-2) and lastly the new one AFC Challenge League (tier-3). Based on the current points, rules and regulations, Bangladesh gets two slots to compete, one guaranteed at the group stage of AFC Cup and another through qualification rounds. But with the new rules published a few days ago, Bangladesh will get only one slot in the AFC Challenge League and that is too in the qualification round, not in the guaranteed group stage. This means less international competitive matches for clubs of Bangladesh. These international club matches are very important for football clubs and footballers as it helps them to understand the international perspective as well as boost their confidence in world football. Kings played against the top football players of the world like Pjanic and Paco Alcacer of Sharjah FC, who were former FC Barcelona players. By stopping their goal bound efforts the players of Bangladesh has gained unimaginable confidence in the world football perspective which now we are reaping the benefit in this group stage of AFC Cup and FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers. The players and management are making steps with confidence which is resonating in the 90min game of football. At the end, the result is positive, and football is getting its much undue popularity back slowly. 

Now if we concentrate on the points-based system of AFC, AFC divides its 47 countries into two regions: East and West. East has 22 countries and West has 25. If we look in the below table, countries ranking, and their current slot allocation is given from 2024-2025 onwards (meaning next season). We have to note that Bangladesh falls under the West region.

Bangladesh is in 13th position in the West Zone, which gives us a direct group stage slot in the AFC Challenge Cup. But if somehow, we make it to 11 or 12 position, we will get at least one group stage slot and one qualification slot which means one more slot for a club team. If we look at the points table, 11 and 12 positions are occupied by Turkmenistan and Kuwait respectively.

Kuwait has two teams in Group B and C, but both of the teams are sitting in 3rd position. The chance of their teams to qualify from the group is very slim. Only if one of their teams in Group B - Kuwait SC wins the next match then they might have the chance to be the best runner up among Group A, B and C which will put them in the knockout phase. Otherwise, the chances of Kuwait gaining more points are unlikely. Even if they do, the twist is that if you have two teams alive in the competition, your points will be divided. So, it will be much easier to surpass Kuwait if Kings wins the next match.

Now Turkmenistan also has two teams in Group E, but both of them are sitting in 2nd ALTYN ASYR FC and 3rd FC MER Wand they will not qualify for the knockout. Additionally, they have Ahal FC in AFC Champions League Group A. But they are at the bottom winning only one match. Their remaining match is against AL Ain FC of UAE who is the table topper. Meaning they won’t gain points much further. Whatever points they will gain will be divided by three so it will be a small advantage. It will be divided by three because they have a total of 3 teams in the same stage of both competitions.

Bahrain’s only representation: Al Riffa is the table topper of Group C and they have already qualified. This means whatever points you are seeing above; they will get additional 3 points for knockout stage qualification. Currently it seems impossible to surpass them as they will gain more points and whatever they will earn will be added to Bahrain. This is exactly the advantage of Bangladesh as Bashundhara Kings is the only representation, so whatever Kings is earning is adding full to the table.

India’s fate will be decided in the match between Odisha and Kings. If India loses this match meaning no team will make it to the next round. India has three teams in the AFC competitions, Odisha and Mohun Bagan in AFC Cup and Mumbai City in ACL. Mumbai City has lost all their matches and as three teams in all competitions, so this has a huge effect on their points earned. Even though Odisha and Mohun Bagan earned a total 5.633 points in 2023-2024, Mumbai City’s performance has allocated them a total of 2.078 points only till date. 

Now a concern here is Oman sitting in 15 positions. Oman’s only representation AL Nahda is sitting on top of Group A after 5 matches with 12 points. When in a group like this a team earns 12 points, it is most likely to advance and get more points. Oman will surely get additional 3 points in the ranking table and move up and might surpass Bangladesh also.
If Kings can qualify from the group to knockout stage, then Kings will get additional 3 points which will be a huge boost in the points system. Kings can gain additional 4.8 points for each WIN and 1.6 points for each DRAW in the Knockout Stage. As it stands in different groups, it is very unrealistic for Syria, Kuwait, and Turkmenistan teams to qualify to the knockout phase ,so this gives Bangladesh a great advantage through Kings to win, qualify, gather points, and shoot up to 11th position. Also, it will take close to India’s 9th position as India will not be earning much in that scenario. Any positive result in the knockout stage will even help Bangladesh to surpass India in the club competition ranking.

If Bangladesh reaches 11 position, this means Bangladesh will enter the 2nd tier competition of AFC which will be ACL2. This will give a huge boost to the clubs of Bangladesh as they will have regular chances to play against top teams in AFC Competitions from 2024/2025 onwards which will help the country to be more competitive and stronger in terms of football governance. 

In the modern world, Football holds more importance for politics and governance than UNICEF itself. FIFA has 211 countries as members whereas UNICEF has 192. If a country has more representation in international or regional football competitions, they have more voice to raise for their own right. Additionally, the teams get competitive international matches which prepare them professionally. To give you an insight, Biswanath Ghosh came into the dressing room at half time against Sharjah FC and said by himself, ‘it is not so hard to mark Paco Alcacer or Pjanic, I do not know why I was so nervous before!!”. Kings eventually lost the match, but Biswanath Ghosh gained a massive amount of confidence which now reflects in his game nationally and internationally. Bangladesh sports teams always had a mental block against teams from India, Kings Team just proved that now it is not the case anymore. The reason behind this confidence is playing at the highest level against various opponents regularly. When you can play and defend against Pjanic and Paco Alcacer in a 90 mins match, Sahal Abdul Samad or Sunil Chettri doesn’t seem that hard before the start of the match.
 

The writer is Marketing and Media Manager, Bashundhara Kings