Topu expects team’s positive results in WC Qualifiers

DHAKA – National defender Topu Barman said the national football team will play three important home matches against Afghanistan, India and Oman and he expects positive results as the matches would give them a home ground advantage.

While sharing thoughts through a video message today, he said they played well all of their away matches of the qualifiers and hoped they would carry out the same performance at the home ground.

“We’ll take on Afghanistan on October 8 in our first home match. We have been out of training for more than three months. Hopefully, our camp will start in August and we’ll have enough time to get ready for the match. The home side always enjoys some extra advantages. We had a good fight against Afghanistan in the first-leg match in Tajikistan, though we lost the match conceding a late goal there. But, if we compare as team-wise, we are better than them. We did very well in the away match. So, I hope we’ll do well in the home match. Actually I’m expecting a positive result,” Topu said.

He said: “We had almost won against India at their home match but unfortunately conceded the late goal in the 89th minute. It was our bad luck. What we did against them there… I think it’ll now play a positive role against India. We know about Indian team… We’ve played matches against them. I found no differences between our conditions, both of us are in an equal position. It is going to be a 50-50 match. Besides, we’ll have an extra advantage in home match.”

Terming Oman as a strong opponent, the national defender said: “We know Oman are the strong opponents… We lost the match conceding 1-4 goals defeat against them at their soil… I feel that was the toughest match of world cup qualifiers. We’ve played our away match, now Oman will come to play their away match. We’ll try hard to defend against them, all of us will try to perform well against Oman. I hope if we perform well at the team level against them, then we will get positive results. Finally, I hope we’ll get positive results in our three upcoming home matches,” Topu concluded.