Butler optimistic about Asian Cup berth

Bangladesh coach Peter Butler feels that if his players can bring their 'A' game to the pitch, they can get through to the AFC Women's Asian Cup.

Speaking ahead the qualifying campaign in Yangon, the Englishman told media yesterday that this young group of players have shown in recent past that they can compete against higher-ranked opponents.

Bangladesh, in C Group, will play their first game against Bahrain at 6:30pm (Bangladesh time) tomorrow. They will then face the toughest side of the group, Myanmar (ranked 55th), before wrapping up the campaign against lowly Turkmenistan (141st).

While Bahrain are 36 places above the 128th-ranked Bangladesh, recent draws against similarly higher-ranked Indonesia and Jordan gives Butler the confidence about qualifying.

"We played Indonesia and Jordan and that really gave us a good sort of benchmark and a little bit of a marker in the sand of actually where we are and what we're capable of doing. I would never dismiss our chances of actually qualifying," Butler said during a pre-tournament press conference.

The team hasn't had ideal preparation in Yangon since reaching four days ago. All the training sessions were conducted during morning while the matches will be played either in the evening or in the afternoon. And then there has been consistent rain in the former capital of Myanmar over the last few days.

Butler, however, was satisfied with the preparation and build-up to the campaign, feeling that working closely rising talents as well a few senior players gives him the ideal player-pool to progress further.

"We're on a journey. I'm positive and I'm very optimistic about the progress my young players have made," Butler said. "We have to be honest with ourselves and say, 'can we qualify out of this group?' The answer to that is, if everybody brings their A game, I think they can."

Bahrain coach Mohammed Adnan Hussain said they want to play good football.

"We've had a short time period of training, gathering of the players and we had three games -- two against Emirates and one against Saudi Arabia. The team is mixture of young players and seniors. Hopefully we're going to present something good in Myanmar."