Sri Lanka U23 National Football Team leaves to Bahrain
Sri Lanka U23 Men’s National Football team leaves Bahrain tomorrow, 20th March 2019 to take part in the Qualifying Round of AFC U23 Championship 2020. The qualifying round is set to held from 22nd to 26th March 2019 at Khalifa Sports City Stadium, Bahrain.
AFC U23 Championship will be held in 2020 in Thailand and the official draw ceremony for the qualifying round matches held last November. A total number of 44 countries across Asia have been drawn into eleven groups consist of four teams. 16 teams will qualify to play in the final round to be held in Thailand, 2020. The final 16 consists of 11 group champions, 4 Best Runners Ups and Thailand who are qualified automatically as hosts.
Sri Lanka will play in Group “B” along with Bahrain, Palestine & Bangladesh in qualifiers round.
FFSL conducted trials in Colombo and outstations to gather players for U23 National pool and 32 players continued their residential training over a month at Beddagana National Football Training Centre. Now, the final 23 players set to leave tomorrow towards Bahrain. The squad consists higher number of outstation players especially from Northern and Eastern provinces.
Sri Lankan Team will be led by Razik Rishad and Sasanga Dilhara Jayasekara will be the Vice-Captain of the team.
Sri Lanka will face Palestine in their first match on 22nd March 2019. Then, they will meet Bahrain on 24th and Bangladesh on 26th March 2019.
“I believe that we have a talented and physical strong team. We were able to conduct practices in a short period of time. But we hope to give a good competition in this qualifiers round and this international experience will be very useful for the upcoming South Asian Games (SAG) to be held in September this year” said Mr. Nizam Packeer Ali The Head Coach of Men’s National Team.
