The Sri Lanka football team will leave the island today for Bangladesh to participate in the 12th edition of the South Asian Football Championship where seven teams will be in action from September 4 to 15 at the Bangabandu National stadium.
The number of teams for the Championship was reduced to seven as Afghanistan has withdrawn from the South Asian Football Federation.
Sri Lanka won the Championship only once in 1995 when it was played in the island. Since then the Sri Lankans have reached the semi final only once. This time under former national player and a well experienced international coach Rumy Pakeer Ali hopes, Sri Lanka hopes to do well in Dhaka.
Ali addressing a press briefing on Friday said that after taking over the position as coach his intention was to revive football to its past former level.
“With this I adopted a plan to introduce young blood to the game of football and it has shown good results”, said Ali.
The 20 member squad selected to play in the Championship is packed with many young players but with a lot of experience. The experienced they gained by playing against Lithuania, Vietnam and Japan should help them to bring glory to the country.
President of the FFSL said: “As we planned at present the team is a well balanced one with young Subash Madushan leading the team for the Championship. He also has a set of seniors as well as few highly talented players to deliver good results”.