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First place clash today

Abahani up against Ashgabat

Sports Reporter
Abahani and Ashgabat Football Club will meet today for the all-important qualifying match (Group B) for the final stage of the AFC President's Cup at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.
The champions of all three groups of the President Cup qualifiers along with the best runner-up will advance to the final stage, which will be played later this year.
It is the third and concluding match of the tournament and will be shown live by state owned Bangladesh Television (BTV) from 6pm.
Ashgabat are being tipped as favourites for the match as they scored heavily against a weak Sri Lanka Army on Thursday but local giants Abahani are unnerved about their superiority.
"They are a skilled outfit and spread the play around using the entire field. Their height, physique and skills do give them an added advantage over us but 1 don't see a reason why we can’t beat them provided we put in our best effort. There are no injury concerns in our team and we have made good use of the three days we were off so there has been enough preparation for tomorrow," said Abahani team manager Satyajit Das Rupu.
Rupu looked after Abahani's practice session yesterday at their club ground in Dhanmondi as head coach Amalesh Sen is still ill even though he was present for training yesterday. The team however could not have a full session due to incessant rain in the after noon.
Star striker Zahid Hossain Emily was confi dent of the Sky Blues' ability to beat the opposi lion and believed that there was no reason for players to put extra pressure on themselves after Ashgabat's brilliant showonThursday.
"Just thinking about how good they are is only going to add extra pressure so we are just concentrating on the match and as a team we are fully capable of a win; we just need to play our strongest game. Playing at home will be an advantage for us and we look forward to all the crowd support which is always very inspiring."
Emily was suffering from a long injury to his left hamstring but informed that he has recovered fully to take the field once again. The national striker spent most of the time on the field against Sri Lanka Army on Tuesday although he struggled to play his natural game.
Meanwhile, Ashgabat also struggled to practice yesterday due to rain and their training at the Big Bowl was cancelled at the last minute. They were later taken to the Shahced Mohammad Mostafa Stadium (SMMS) in Kamalapur where head coach Grigoriyants
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Boris was left unimpressed and expressed dissatisfaction at the missed opportunity to prepare ahead of today's crunch game.
"The field was not fit to play on and we couldn't do much except some running around and basic drills. So although I don't expect this to be a problem for tomorrow's game but it is definitely not an ideal situation. We will make some changes to our formation and strategy as Abahani is a different opposition than Sri Lanka (Army) and are stronger. They can't be taken lightly and we will be going all out and full strength to win," said Boris.
Abahani and Ashgabat go into today's match with a goal difference of plus one and four respectively.