Football requires rethink

Only the high-ups of the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) would be able to tell how much impact its extravagant experiment of sending two different 'national' teams to India and Malaysia this month will have in the near future.

With the SAFF Championship due this December, the footballers will get just four months to prepare in a bid to regain the regional trophy they gave up to India in December 2005. Lack of preparation, however, was evident in Bangladesh's games in the Nehru Cup where they even failed to beat Cambodia, whose last-gasp equaliser forced a 1-1 draw -- the only point Bangladesh earned in the five-team round robin league.

While hosts India began their preparation months ago, and played five warm-up matches in Portugal, the Bangladeshi footballers did not even get the chance to know their teammates properly as they camped for less than two weeks after playing the inaugural professional league for six months.

The last time Bangladesh played in the SAFF Championship, under Argentine coach Diego Cruciani, they got four months to unite and reached the final. To be one of the final pairing again in Sri Lanka and Maldives, who host the eight-nation meet jointly, the BFF must start implementing its plans now. And football's governing body must only not concentrate on the only plan it had shown in the past: Long-term camp and no preparation matches.