Mohammedan Sporting Club Limited raised a new hope among the country’s football fans by winning the title of Bashundhara Group Federation Cup 2022-23.
The traditional black and whites ended their nine-year-long trophy drought after a clinching a thrilling win in the tie-breaker over their arch-rivals Dhaka Abahani Limited in Tuesday’s final in Cumilla.
Former Mohammedan footballers also expressed their high expectations after the victory and started to believe that the rejuvenated club will get back the ‘Golden Days’.
“The country’s football won’t wake up if Mohammedan-Abahani fail to revive. If the Abahani-Mohammedan regain their supremacy on the football field, I believe we will get back our golden days of football,” former Mohammedan defender Kaiser Hamid told The Daily Sun.
“This victory will certainly bring Mohammedan back to its life. The credit equally goes to the new committee of Mohammedan. I believe that the committee will form a strong team for the league as well, a team who will be the next champions,” he added.
Mohammedan, who last win a league title back in 2002, are currently placed fourth in the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League 2022-23, Although they have already lost the league to Bashundhara Kings, former players hope to win the league in the coming years.
“We were either champions or runners up during our days. Those days were the golden days. Mohammedan have been waiting for a title for a long time. No trophy, no achievement during those days. We were on the backfoot,” Team Manager and former Mohammedan forward Imtiaz Ahmed Nakib said.
Mohammedan Director Abu Hasan Chowdhury Prince said that they are trying to form a strong team to win league title next season.
“We will certainly try to form a strong team to win the professional league next year. This year, Kings already bagged the title and Abahani also confirmed the second place. We will try to grab third place,” he said.
“Mohammedan election will be held after Eid. After the election, the new committee will start finding new players, especially high skilled foreign players like Diabate,” he added.
Mohammedan had a chance to play in the qualifying round of AFC Cup 2023-24 as the Federation Cup champions this year but they lost the opportunity as they failed to meet AFC club licensing criteria.
Mohammedan last played in the AFC Cup in 2006.
"A club needs to meet AFC's criteria like a pro-licensed coach, developed infrastructure before going to appeal for the license. We didn't have these, so we didn't submit any letter for the AFC Club license. But now, we will sort out all these and try to meet AFC’s all criterias before the next season,” Prince said.
