Qatar excited to play international match after long break, says coach Felix Sanchez
- 3 years ago
DOHA: Coach Felix Sanchez on Thursday said Qatar players are ‘excited’ to play an international match after a long break on Friday when they take on Bangladesh at Al Duhail Stadium.
Qatar hosts Bangladesh in a FIFA and AFC joint qualifier on Friday. The Group E clash of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualifying phase will kick off at 7:00pm.
With 13 points from five matches, Qatar are the current leaders of Group E, while Bangladesh, who have claimed one point from four outings, sit bottom of the section, The defending Asian champions defeated Bangladesh 2-0 when the teams met in Dhaka on Matchday Three.
“We are happy to be playing an international match after a long time. It is an important match for us as these joint qualifiers have a lot riding for teams,” Sanchez said in a pre-match press conference on Thursday.
“We are excited and ready to play tomorrow’s match,” the Spaniard added.
“There is no doubt that the coach of the Bangladeshi team knows his team well and is striving for a positive result. But we have experience of playing against the Bangladesh national team as we went to Dhaka to play the first leg.
“In general the Bangladesh team is well organized. But when we played the first leg, the weather was not that good and the pitch was bad too,” Sanchez said.
“Bangladesh plays well as a unit and are disciplined. We have to make sure we don’t concede any goals and we have to avoid counterattacks from them. We have to be good in marking,” Sanchez said.
When asked about the formation of the Qatar squad, Sanchez said on Thursday: “We have a comprehensive idea of the squad that we will start with tomorrow. We will go to our last training session with hopes that none of the players get injured. We have a few players with yellow cards but the squad is very confident. We hope to play well.”
Muhammad Waad, the Qatar national team player, said on Thursday: “Our team is very well prepared for this return clash. The first clash was difficult due to the state of the pitch there, but now we are playing at home. We will strive to achieve victory, despite the fact that the Bangladesh team is not to be taken lightly.”
He added: “We are entering official competitions after a long break, which usually means you will see strong levels of play from all teams. We hope that we will meet everyone’s expectations tomorrow.”
Source: Source
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