Short camp in Dhaka, 10-day camp in Qatar

The Bangladesh national football team will start their training camp for June's World Cup Qualifiers in the middle of next month at home and will have around 10 days of conditioning camp in Qatar, informed a Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) official yesterday.

The players of the national team are currently with their respective clubs as the second phase of the Bangladesh Premier League is set to begin on April 30, and according to the official, the local camp will begin around the middle of May.

"We are planning to hold four rounds of matches of the Bangladesh Premier League by May 11. The national team players then, except for the ones with AFC Cup engagement, will join the national team camp. Players will likely not be released for Eid-ul-Azha this time as we previously saw players returned with Covid-19 symptoms last year once they came back from such a festival," BFF's general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag told The Daily Star. The camp will be conducted by the full coaching staff, with head coach Jamie Day and his deputy Stuart Watkiss set to return to Bangladesh in the first week of May. They will watch a couple of rounds of matches of the league, which will be held at all four venues like in the first phase, before choosing a squad at the end of the four rounds.

Day and Watkiss, however, will not get the full squad at their disposal in Dhaka as BPL champions Bashundhara Kings, who boast a number of national team players, will be in Maldives for the AFC Cup group stages from May 14 to 20. Abahani, who too have a few players of the current national team, could be involved in that AFC group stage if they qualify through two playoff rounds.

"The players of Bashundhara and Abahani (if they qualify for the group stages) will fly to Qatar straight from Maldives right after their assignment. The ones who will be in the camp in Dhaka will also fly for Qatar around the same time so that the whole squad can start a conditioning camp in Qatar 10 to 12 days ahead of the qualifying matches. Meanwhile, we will try to arrange one or two practice matches there for the team," Shohag added.

Bangladesh will play against Afghanistan on June 3, will take on India on June 7 and will wrap up the second round of qualifiers against Oman on June 15, all the matches to be played in Qatar. The men in red and green are bottom of Group E with a single point from five matches, with Qatar leading the table with 16 points. Oman, Afghanistan and India occupy the next three positions.