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‘Girls tend to be strong by default when it comes to playing football’

Interim head coach to the Bangladesh National Women’s Football team, AKM Saiful Bari Titu, speaks about his experience coaching the team, their recent performances, and what can be done to take them further, in this interview with Afia Jahin of The Daily Star.
Having mostly coached men’s football in the past, how different has your experience been of coaching the national women’s team over the past few months?
I have to say that the transition was not smooth because, in terms of communicating with and motivating the men’s team versus the women’s team, there is a marked difference. But for me, the fundamentals of coaching involve influencing and persuading the players, and this applies the same to both female and male players. Before me, the women’s team had established coaches such as Golam Rabbani Choton and Paul Smalley. And these are people the players had accepted as their role models or even as father figures to an extent. So it was certainly not easy for me to step into that role. But I had told the girls that I would show them my work in order to get their trust. Essentially, I knew from the beginning that they wouldn’t be able to have faith in me through my words alone. I had to alter my coaching approach so that the gap between us would narrow. The fact is that the approach to coaching men tends to be a more domineering one. Initially, such an approach understandably came off as rude for the women’s team, so this is something I had to check and fix. So far, especially having now coached both the men’s and women’s senior teams, the latter has certainly been an interesting and enjoyable experience for me.
Given the two losses and one tie, what do you think were the major factors behind the team’s less satisfactory outcome in their first Asian Games in September?
In terms of the Asian Games, it needs to be said that besides Nepal, the other two teams in our group were definitely unsurpassable for us. Especially considering that Japan had won the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup and beaten Spain (this year’s champion) 4-0 in the group stage of the 2023 world cup. So there is too much of a difference between our team and a team as strong as Japan. I will say, however, that we conceded too many goals in the match against Vietnam. But even that match served as a good experimental one as the girls are mostly used to playing with a high-pressing team. Still, I wouldn’t really say that our performance in the Asian Games was less satisfactory. There was actually a lot of learnings we received during the tournament, as we played against each of the three teams with a different game plan. Plus, this was the first time that the Bangladesh women’s team participated in the Asian Games. Ultimately, it’s always a learning experience to play against teams that are much stronger than ours. And we only get to play such teams every few years or so because, say, even if we ask to, a team like Japan wouldn’t want to play a friendly against us because of how much weaker we are. In the end, being able to play against these stronger teams helps us to discover how our team performs as a unit and in terms of individual players, and I believe this learning experience bore fruit for us in the recent friendly matches against Singapore.
Speaking of the two consecutive wins in the FIFA Tier-1 International Women’s Friendly Matches against Singapore earlier this month, how are you and the team planning to hold on to this momentum and prolong this performance streak in the coming months?
Given that the SAFF championship is supposed to take place in October 2024, the many upcoming FIFA friendly matches will be crucial for us. For the Bangladesh team, it will be a matter of defending the title this time around. So it is essential to hold on to this momentum by playing the upcoming friendly matches, especially because there is little to no possibility of us having the chance to play any competitive tournaments.
Credit must be given to the federation for training the women’s team round the year, as this is a facility that most women’s teams—especially those in Asian countries—do not always get. In terms of holding on to the momentum, analysing our performance against Singapore, for example, is necessary. Although we won these two matches by many goals, we also made mistakes. So we need to retain the positive aspects of our performance and also work on the negative ones. The team and I have already conducted objective analyses, including player feedback, by watching back footage of the Singapore matches.
It should be noted that girls in our country tend to be strong by default when it comes to playing football, because they have to face a lot of challenges in order to be footballers in the first place. There is always discouragement from family members, neighbours, and relatives towards girls playing football. But this works to make the players quite tough mentally, and we need to see to it that they remain motivated. Alongside this, even though the federation has recently increased the women players’ monthly salaries by a lot, it is also important that the girls get to play professional league matches more regularly as these can be a good source of income (and, by extension, a source of motivation) for them.
Given that the girls have proven their calibre time and again—and especially since their SAFF Championship victory in 2022—have you observed a positive shift in terms of the resources and assistance that our women’s football team has been receiving?
In my opinion, by winning the SAFF Championship, the girls won the hearts of the people of the country. And in any case, at whatever age group they have won tournaments, we have seen the women’s teams being rewarded for it accordingly by the government. Recently, they bagged Dhaka Bank as a sponsor, and even some cricket boards have financed the women’s football team. Such rewards and recognition are much-needed. And as I’ve said before, we are fortunate that the girls get to train all throughout the year. The male footballers, besides playing for the national team, remain in practice by playing for various clubs. In the absence of such opportunities for women, it is great that the federation has enforced all-year-round training for them as this is what keeps the team practising.
In terms of any development of the team, the players should be the central focus and any other facilities or strategies should be built around them. I would say that the women’s football team has already been recognised quite well. To ensure that the rewards keep coming, the girls have to keep performing. But besides that, I believe that there are many corporate organisations in the country which can step in and help organise league tournaments for the women’s team every year. Ultimately, it is the girls’ performance that can ensure the support they get from people and from organisations.
From what I have seen, our women footballers tend to be very disciplined and determined, in the sense that they are able to achieve anything they set their mind to. This is something they should hold on to. Besides this, they need to keep working on the technical aspects of their performance. At the end of the day, a coach can provide players with certain information, but the hard work on the field has to be done by the team. My advice to the girls would be for them to keep improving themselves. At the optimum level of performance, recognition will come to them from all sides anyway, and success will follow them instead of the other way around.