#Title

Kings stay ahead of the curve
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DHAKA ﻿Tuesday﻿ ﻿September﻿ ﻿21﻿, ﻿2021﻿, ashwin 6, 1428 bs
photo: FIROZ AHMED
Sports Reporter
The 38th minute of the first half saw Topu Barman jump in the air with both of his fists clenched with a sheer adrenaline rush that one might associate with a footballer who had just scored a late second-half injury-time winner. Although it wasn’t a match winning goal, however, the central defender’s towering header which had levelled the score-line, meant more than that in more ways than one.
Not only did he manage to redeem himself from his blunder earlier at the 28th minute, where he struck his own net, he also ensured his side, the already-crowned champions Bashundhara Kings, came back into the match and ultimately avoided ending their record-breaking campaign on a low.
And thus, Kings rounded off their Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) campaign by playing out a 1-1 draw against Abahani in the last match of the league at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.
The stalemate left Abahani to avoid a defeat against Kings, who had beaten their main rivals four successive times earlier – thrice in league and once in Federation Cup - since Abahani beat Bashundhara Kings in the maiden meeting between two sides in 2018. Kings secured 65 points from 24 matches while Abahani finished third with 47 points from 24 matches.
Kings, who seized a back-to-back professional football league title with four matches in hands before going to play their maiden AFC Cup in Maldives earlier, celebrated their triumph in small scale in the last match of the league, whose fixtures had stretched to nearly eight-and-a-half month due to frequent breaks following the pandemic-induced lockdowns, the national team’s engagements, unplayable grounds and the AFC Cup engagement of Kings.
The professional football league so far saw for the first time that the title race turned into a one-horse race with Kings maintaining an unstoppable status, in stark contrast to other title contenders like Abahani, Sheikh Jamal, Chattogram Abahani, Saif SC and Sheikh Russel KC.
There was a huge difference of 13 points between the champions and runners-up, who ended up closer to the sixth-placed one on the points table.
“Except the table-topper, the league was overall good and competitive among the rest of the six teams, which I really want to appreciate,” country’s lone UEFA A license coach Maruful Haque said. “The league could’ve been more fruitful and competitive had the league not been interrupted frequently.”
Maruf believes the interruptions gave champions Bashundhara Kings an edge to keep the momentum of their performance going.
“To be honest, all clubs don’t have that standard of coaching who can maintain the same rhythm or tempo of his team’s performance following frequent breaks.
“It was a really big challenge. So if the clubs could’ve that standard of coach, champions Bashundhara could’ve lost one or two more matches,” said Chattogram Abahani coach, whose charges only beat Kings in the league.
Maruf was overwhelmed with the performance of some promising players but not pleased with most of the national players.
To make the professional football league more competitive in the upcoming season, Maruful reckons the federation should disclose a fixed league fixture, come out of traditional match allocation and improve the standard of the refereeing.