\nSports Desk \/\/<\/p>\n
The Bangladesh football team is currently in Jakarta, Indonesia, to participate in the inaugural FIFA ASEAN Cup. Hamza Choudhury, the star midfielder from the English Championship club Sheffield United, joined the national squad there on Monday. His inclusion has injected fresh energy and confidence into the team atmosphere.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) shared a video message from Hamza Choudhury with the media. In it, he spoke about his excitement regarding the tournament, as well as the host nation, Indonesia, and their 23-year-old British-Indonesian center-back, Elkan Baggott.<\/p>\n
Speaking before taking the field for Bangladesh, Hamza Choudhury said, “We are very excited and feel honored to be part of this tournament. It is clearly a great opportunity for us, as we get to play against teams ranked higher than us. Our goal is to secure as many points as possible.”<\/p>\n
Expressing the team’s desire to play with their heads held high, Hamza added, “We haven’t come here to be afraid of anyone; we know our own capabilities. However, Insha’Allah, this will be a learning process for us, and we are here to gain as much experience as possible. I hope we can make our country proud.”<\/p>\n
The tournament kicks off tomorrow. On the opening day of Division 2 in Hong Kong, Laos will face Brunei, and Myanmar will take on Timor-Leste. Bangladesh will begin their Division 1 campaign on Friday with a match against Malaysia. Eager to get onto the pitch, Hamza said, “Let’s see how we perform.”<\/p>\n
Regarding their opponents, Indonesia, he remarked, “They are clearly in a strong position in the rankings. They have high-quality players and an excellent head coach. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are among the top contenders in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.”
\nHamza Choudhury during training. Indonesian young defender Elkan Baggott plays for the English Championship side Millwall. Speaking about him, Hamza said, “I saw him on the flight. I think he is clearly a very good player and still quite young. Millwall is an excellent team, so I am looking forward to playing against him in this tournament and, of course, in the league as well.”<\/p>\n
The Bangladesh team has not yet visited the tournament’s main venue, Jakarta’s Gelora Bung Karno Stadium. Hamza is eager to see the ground: “We haven’t seen the stadium yet. God willing, we will visit it tomorrow. But yes, everything is very good; we have nothing to complain about. The hotel is amazing, and everyone is very friendly. We are really enjoying ourselves.”<\/p>\n
Thomas Dooley’s team will face hosts Indonesia in their second match on September 28. The English Championship rivalry between Hamza and Baggott will now play out in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Stay tuned for regular updates and share your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sports Desk \/\/ The Bangladesh football team is currently in Jakarta, Indonesia, to participate in the inaugural FIFA ASEAN Cup. Hamza Choudhury, the star midfielder from the English Championship club Sheffield United, joined the national squad there on Monday. His inclusion has injected fresh energy and confidence into the team atmosphere. Yesterday, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) shared a video message from Hamza Choudhury with the media. In it, he spoke about his excitement regarding the tournament, as well as the host nation, Indonesia, and their 23-year-old British-Indonesian center-back, Elkan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8992,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8990\/revisions\/8992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailymorningsun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}