Bravo, the U-16 girl booters!

News of victory in an international football competition is something very new to us. Thus the performance of the Bangladesh U-16 girls' football team must come as pleasant tiding and a commendable achievement. They have qualified as one of the top eight in the AFC U-16 competition having trounced all their opponents that they encountered so far. The accomplishment is even more heartening when seen in the backdrop of the dismal performance of our national men's football team. The heavy drubbing in the hands of Maldives by a huge margin in a recent friendly encounter between the two is an example of the nadir that our men's team has fallen. 

Admittedly, our girls have had to face many hurdles in coming to the stage they have, but they have been performing very well in the age group competitions as we see from the performance of the U-14 team which won the AFC regional championship trophy in December 2015. We would hope that our girls will continue to perform in the same vein and not allow the wins to go to their head. We would hope too that the football federation will continue to provide everything necessary to ensure that not only is the performance level maintained, but that it also goes up steadily.  

When, in spite of the efforts of the football federation, the state of men's football in Bangladesh has not come up to  standard of the countries around us, then those that are in charge of the girls' football team must be doing something right to have achieved the admirable results. There is perhaps a cue in the girls' performance for the men.