Bangladesh national football team will take on African team Seychelles in the first match of a two-match FIFA Tier-1 International Football Series 2023 at the Sylhet District Stadium today.
The match is scheduled to start at 03:45pm (BST) and will be telecast live on T Sports and BTV.
The booters have been preparing for the bilateral series for the last 19 days. They had completed an 11-day camp in Saudi Arabia before they arrived in Sylhet and had a 7-day camp.
They also played two practice matches against Medina-based outfit Ohod Club and Malawi national football team during their stay in Saudi Arabia and both matches finished with a 1-1 result.
Bangladesh head coach Javier Cabrera believed that they had a ‘positive’ camp and could expect to win both matches against Seychelles.
“We are not taking Seychelles as a amateur team. We have to prove ourselves. We have to maintain consistency,” said Cabrera during a press conference in Sylhet on Friday.
“We have targeted to win SAFF. So, there is no joke about Seychelles. We want to win both matches. We are very serious about these two games,” he added.
“If we get a good result from this series, it will be good preparation for SAFF. We have to prove ourselves that we are a good team,” said Jamal.
Bangladesh and Seychelles last met in the Four Nations Invitational Tournament in 2021 in Sri Lanka where their match ended 1-1.
Seychelles came here with eight changes from their previous squad in Sri Lanka. They added two players from the English leagues – Michael Mancienne and Daryl Louis.
Michael earlier played for EPL clubs Chelsea and now is currently playing at Burton Albion.
Seychelles head coach Neville Both said that they came here to win both matches though they had only six training sessions before going into these matches.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Football Federation confirmed their 23-member final squad for the series a day before the tournament gets underway.
The BFF excluded Muktijoddha SKC goalkeeper Mehedi Hasan Srabon, Sheikh Russel KC forward Mohammad Ibrahim, Abahani Ltd goalkeeper Sadidul Alam Sohel and Mohammedan SC forward Emon Shariah from the 27-member preliminary squad.
