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Sunday | October 04, 2026 | Dhaka

Bangladesh’s unsuccessful mission

 Sabbir Hossain
 Published: 12:52 AM, 04 October 2026  Updated: 10:31 PM, 03 October 2026

Bangladesh football team returned home from Indonesia after taking part in the FIFA ASEAN Cup at Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia.

After the Independence of Bangladesh, the red-and-green out-fit for the first time took part in a tournament, which is approved by FIFA, the highest governing body of world football.

Apart from this tournament, Bangladesh competed in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers, but those were not a tournament.

Bangladesh showed a poor performance in the FIFA ASEAN Cup. Bangladesh were in Group-A with Malaysia, Singapore and hosts Indonesia.

The red-and-green out-fit suffered a 3-0 defeat to Malaysia in their first Group-A match on September 25.

Bangladesh lost to Singapore by a solitary goal on September 28. The red-and-green out-fit tasted a formidable 2-9 goals defeat to Indonesia on October 1. Bangladesh failed to earn any point after playing three points.

This Reporter spoke to former legend footballer Rumman Bin Wali Sabbir on Saturday to find out the causes of failure of Bangladesh football team in their recent dismal performance in FIFA ASEAN Cup. Sabbir played for a long time in Bangladesh National Football team.

He is now Director of Dhaka Mohammedan Sporting Club Limited.
Sabbir said, ” There were no understanding among the players of Bangladesh team.

The expatriate players and the local players had no combination. Malaysia and Indonesia are good teams.

The Government of Malaysia and the Government of Indonesia gave citizenships to the foreign players and a lot of expatriate players took part for those nations. Malaysia and Indonesia are comparatively better teams than Bangladesh.”

Sabbir also said, ” Apart from Hamza Choudhury, there was no perfect professional footballer in Bangladesh team. Besides, Bangladesh played the matches without their key defender Topu Barman.

Thus, there was a big gap in Bangladesh’s defence line. I don’t know if Head Coach of Bangladesh team Thomas Dooley had any planning with his booters.

Our players failed to perform man to man marking in the match between Bangladesh and Indonesia.”

He said, ” When we played against stronger South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Iran, we had plans and strategy to restrict those mighty teams. We restored some parities against those teams.”

The legend footballer said, ” Most of the officials of Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) are worthless.

There is no infrastructure in Bangladesh’s football. There is no district football competition across the country.

The Pioneer Football League is not held regularly. There is no enough footballers in pipelines. The officials of the Game Development Committee of BFF have no planning.

The matches of Bangladesh Football League, Federation Cup and other tournaments were held in unplayable grounds.

He added, ” I hope the State Minister for Youth and Sports, Youth and Sports Ministry, National Sports Council and BFF will meet to discuss for the development of football of Bangladesh.

The Sports Minister should take a 10-year intensive plans to regain the strength of Bangladesh football team.”