Anisur Rahman

A revitalised Bangladesh are set to begin their SAFF Championship campaign with hopes of a winning start in their opening match against a new-look new-look Sri Lanka at the National Football Stadium in Male today.

“I have already bought a ticket to watch Bangladesh’s opening match against Sri Lanka after standing in a long queue on Wednesday. Many Bangladeshis living here are also waiting to buy tickets,” expatriate Mansur Ali contentedly answered ahead of the start of the SAFF Championship in Male today.

Ahead of the 13th SAFF Championship in the Maldives from October 1, Bangladesh will hope their desire to play the elusive final does not again turn to despair.

Interim coach Oscar Bruzon has already announced his intention to implement an attacking style of football in the upcoming SAFF Championship,

Surprising call-ups of France-based midfielder Tahmid Islam and Canada-based forward Rahbar Wahed Khan in Kyrgyzstan-bound Bangladesh football squad has apparently been leading the discussion of whether the dearth of quality local players has prompted the Bangladesh Football Federation to lean on expatriate footballers.

San Marino, a country with a population of only 34 thousand, Burkina Faso (20.90 million) and Turkmenistan (61.13 million), all three have erased their names from the awkward list of the countries that never won a single Olympic medal. Whereas Bangladesh, a country with 163 million population, are still carrying the tag of the most populous yet unsuccessful nation in the Olympics history, following yet another barren campaign in Tokyo, their tenth overall. 

“I tried my best but it was not enough,” were the first words from teenage archer Diya Siddique after her loss to Karyna Dziominskaya of Belarus in a tiebreaker in the women’s individual recurve event at the Tokyo Olympics yesterday.

After being eliminated from the second round of the men’s individual recurve event at the Tokyo Olympics, Bangladesh’s top archer Ruman Sana felt the urge to smash his bow shortly before returning to his senses and setting his sights on a gold medal at the 2028 Olympics.

Teenage archer Diya Siddique is considered to be the third potential athlete -- after Ruman Sana and shooter Abdullah Hel Baki -- to bring success for Bangladesh in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the 17-year-old archer has recently hogged the limelight by bagging a silver medal by pairing with Ruman in the Recurve mixed event of Archery World Cup in Switzerland.

Archer Ruman Sana’s direct qualification to 2020 Tokyo Olympics has seemingly fueled the Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) to dream something big this time around even though it has always been a token participation in the Olympics for Bangladesh since its first appearance at world’s showpiece event in the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.

With fans still reeling from the excitement of Copa America and Euros, any enthusiasm regarding the SAFF Championship -- South Asia’s biggest football carnival -- is likely to be vanish before a ball is kicked due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Thirty-seven years since a maiden appearance at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, participation at the Games remains a symbolic gesture on the part of Bangladeshi athletes.

Getting no space at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Salimullah Medical College Hospital (SMCH), relatives of Salma Akter (26) brought her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) yesterday noon.

Since returning from Doha following the Joint Qualifiers for World Cup and Asian Cup, footballers of the national team have wasted no time in engaging themselves to domestic circuit’s club commitments at a time when all of footballing fraternity surf the waves of excitement of the ongoing editions of European Championship and Copa America.

“I like Shuvo Noboborsho [Bengali New Year]. I think it is unique and special the way it is celebrated all over country,” Nigeria-born footballer Eleta Kingsley said as he was reacting to receiving his Bangladesh passport on Wednesday.

Afsan Chowdhury’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Bangladesh: The Quest for a State (1937-71), published in 2020 by Shrabon Prokashani, studies Bangabandhu in the context of the peasants’ resistance against colonialism and their quest for a state in South Asia.

Finland-born Tariq Raihan Kazi is the second expatriate footballer after Jamal Bhuiyan to represent Bangladesh at international football. Tariq, who

The defensive solidity of Jamie Day’s boys in red and green have enjoyed a solid reputation but ironically, the British gaffer is facing a tough challenge to assemble his playing eleven, with the inexperienced backline remains his primary area of concern among all three departments, ahead of the World Cup and Asian Cup Qualifiers starting from June 3 in Qatar.

After displaying her potential in her inaugural tournament by grabbing a gold medal, archer Diya Siddique went AWOL in both domestic and international meets over the past two years before again bursting into the limelight by winning a silver medal from the Archery World Cup in Switzerland along with Bangladesh’s top archer, Ruman Sana.

Participating in Indian regional football league for Bangladeshi top footballers, especially in Kolkata, had once been a periodic and prestigious affair but unfortunately the scenario turned into a rarity, over the years.