SAFF Championship 2023: Lebanon vs Bangladesh Live Updates

3:15 PM: Hello everyone and welcome to Khel Now’s LIVE COVERAGE of the Lebanon vs Bangladesh match in the SAFF Championship 2023. The kick-off is just fifteen minutes away! I am your host Yash Pratap Singh and I’ll be keeping you company through what promises a fascinating evening of football. Please wait for 30 Seconds for the Live blog to load.

SAFF Championship 2023: Lebanon vs Bangladesh - Build-up

After successfully hosting the Hero Intercontinental Cup, India is now all set to host the 2023 SAFF Championship. The matches will be played in the heart of Bengaluru at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium from June 21 onwards.

https://youtu.be/kp0lBlaRwSA

The eight teams have been drawn in two groups of four teams each. Bangladesh who are grouped alongside Lebanon, Maldives and Bhutan in Group B will begin their campaign on June 22 against Lebanon. Ahead of their opening game, their head coach Javier Cabrera shared his thoughts.

Preparation ahead of the tournament

Bangladesh are one of the favourites from Group B to make it to the semi-finals. When asked about the preparations coming into the tournament, the head coach said his team had played a couple of friendlies in Cambodia which has given them a lot of confidence.

“For us, it’s mostly been two weeks of preparations. We were in Dhaka for seven days and then we moved to Cambodia where we were able to play a couple of games. 

“The team managed to do quite well and got positive results. Now we came here with a positive mentality. The team is ready and the group is good and excited and motivated. We are ready to face all the strong teams in the group stage,” he asserted.

Thoughts on Lebanon

Lebanon have been in India for quite some time now as they just got done with the Hero Intercontinental Cup and have been accustomed to the conditions over here.

When asked if that would be an added advantage for Lebanon who Bangladesh play in their first game, Carrera replied, “I think for now it’s important we focus on ourselves. Obviously, they have got a lot of game-time so they are quite ready for the first game. It is going to be a tough match for us but we’ll be ready. There’s not much difference in the weather conditions, so it’s important we focus on ourselves.”

Thoughts on the competition

The SAFF Championship is South Asia’s most high-profile tournament and when asked about the importance of the competition for his team, Javier Cabrera replied that it is one of their priority tournaments this year and the team is very motivated to do well.

“For us the motivation of playing SAFF is huge. It is one of our priority competitions this year with the World Cup qualifiers. You can feel that in the atmosphere of the dressing room, everyone wants to play. I think the competition in this group is very tough. All of us want to qualify and go harder.”

He further went on to say that this time it is more important because Bangladesh haven’t qualified for the semi-finals in the last five editions.

“For us it is very important because it has been five editions since we qualified for the semi-finals. We do believe that by following our game idea we can qualify. There is very strong competition and very strong three games ahead,” he concluded.