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Foreigners usuro locals

Anisur Rahman
As big-money foreign signings take their time to settle into the style and pace of play in Bangladesh, the opening stage
of the football season's curtain-raising Federation Cup is traditionally the platform where local players can showcase their talents and make an impact.
However, that trend was bucked this season as foreigners accounted for 73 per cent of the goals scored over the 15 matches of an unusually high-scoring group stage that yielded 48 goals, double what had been scored at the same stage in the previous season.
The goal-fest from the overseas recruits - who scored 35 goals against the locals' return of 13 --also led to an astounding average of 3.2 goals per match in the ongoing tournament.
In the previous season which had yielded 24 goals, locals had accounted for 13 strikes. In fact, apart from the 2016 Federation Cup when foreigners outscored the locals by one goal (16), local players regularly stole the show in the group stage of the Federation Cup from 2013 onwards.
The local footballers have never been able to translate their fast start onto the professional
football league, where they are quickly outpaced by foreigners, but the saving grace was their output in the Federation Cup.
This time around it was expected that the foreign players would play vital roles in scoring goals after the game's governing body reverted to allowing four foreigners in each playing XI after reducing that quota to two foreigners last season. However, the number of goals that they scored was not expected.
Many opined that the presence of a higher calibre of foreign players, including some promising Asian recruits, has changed the prevailing scenario at the start of the season. This time around 23 foreigners bagged the 35 goals while 13 local players accounted for the rest, scoring a goal each.
"The Federation Cup is more competitive in comparison with previous seasons and there is no guarantee of winning matches because some good foreign players have been signed this time around and they can change the fate of a match at any time," said Abahani coach Jakaria Babu. "I don’t want to mention their names, but some footballers have already drawn my attention through their quality performances."
Current Sheikh Russel coach and former national coach Saiful Bari Titu believes that having good foreign players is one of the major reasons behind the glut of goals, but he was hesitant when it came to evaluating the performance of the local players.
"It is difficult to explain why the local players shone brighter in the Federation Cup. Maybe there were fewer quality foreign players in the previous seasons or perhaps the foreigners had to take some time [to settle] before flourishing in the professional football league," Titu said.
" It may also be that the local players gave more effort in the Federation Cup than they did in the league in order to prove themselves to the club management," he added.
23 foreign players have found the back of the net with six players scoring in more than one match. Three others - Otabek Valiinov, Chinedu Mathew and Kingsley Chigozie - have scored more than one goal but in a single match.
Meanwhile, the focus will remain firmly on the foreign players as the quarterfinal battle begins today with holders Abahani taking on Arambagh at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.