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History beckons booters

Football

Sports Reporter
The Bangladesh national football team started training for the World Cup prequalifiers against Lebanon yesterday with a dream of making it to the group phase of the qualifiers for the first time.
Bangladesh have never crossed the hurdle of the World Cup pre-qualifying round in the past, but this time they are full of confidence of overcoming the hurdle after scoring an impressive 3-0 aggregate win over Pakistan. What gives them more hope is the fact that Lebanon are a few rungs below them in the FIFA ladder.
Bangladesh are currently 163 in the FIFA rankings while Lebanon are at 177. Although the Western Asian nation have never played against Bangladesh, they have suffered defeat at the hands of other South Asian nation, Sri Lanka, in the 2009 Nehru Cup in India.
Since that defeat to Sri Lanka, the Western Asian nation have not managed to win a single game in eight matches; and the second last match they played was a massive 6-0 defeat against Kuwait on July 2. Lebanon are winless on home soil in nine interna-
tional matches since their 4-1 win over India in 2007. Of nine home games, they have only managed 1-1 draws against Vietnam and Namibia, the others being defeats.
“We have never crossed the World Cup pre-qualifiers and we have a good opportunity to cross it after beating Pakistan. We are now dreaming of reaching the qualification round," striker Zahid Hasan Emily told reporters during the players' reporting at the BFF House yesterday.
“We are pursuing a dream, that of beating Lebanon. If we can make this dream come true, we know we will achieve a certain goal in history of country's football,” said midfielder Mamunul Islam.
“We have never played against them but we have learnt that Lebanon are good opponents though they cue not on-song. On the other hand, we have been playing good football and have beaten opponents like Tajikistan and Myanmar. We are confident about a positive result against Lebanon,” said right-back Nasirul Islam.
“Playing the World Cup qualification round would be a great achievement for Bangladesh and it is working in the mind of every player. Our target in the away game will be not to con-
cede a goal against them and then beat them on home soil," said winger Zahid Hossain.
Captain-cum-goalkeeper Biplob Bhattacharjee, echoing the sentiment of Zahid, said that they would try their best to earn a point from the away match and then avail the home condition to beat Lebanon.
However, recalled-defender Mohammad Sujan, who has experience of playing against Lebanon's Nejmeh SC in the President's Cup for Brothers Union and Muktijoddha Sangsad, believes both matches against Lebanon would be tough for Bangladesh.
“Nejmeh SC comprised mostly of national players, who were physically and technically more sound than us and we could not tackle them due to our short stature,” said Sujan, who returns to the national fold after five years since his last involvement with the national team in the 2005 Mardeka Cup in Malaysia.
The national team have been given five days to prepare for the Lebanon campaign with the suspension of Super Cup and the players see it as a positive move. They believe they would get some time to share their ideas among themselves which would help them gel as a unit.