SRI LANKA NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM LEAVES FOR SAFF CHAMPIONSHIP 2018
Sri Lanka National Football Team will tour to Bangladesh on 26th August 2018 to take part in the 12th SAFF Championship 2018 to be held from 4th to 15th September 2018 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Sri Lanka team will be played in the Group “B” along with India and Maldives. Group “A” consists of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan & Nepal.
Sri Lanka will play their first match on 5th September against India while the second match against Maldives on 7th September at Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka.
In 1995, Sri Lanka won the SAFF Championship and it is the highest achievement of Sri Lanka in Football history. Sri Lanka qualified to the semi final round in 1997, 2008 and 2015 in the SAFF tournament. In 1993, Sri Lanka became to the Runners Up in the first edition of SAFF tournament held in Lahore, Pakistan.
National Team could able to get more international exposure recently. This young team played a good game with toured Lithuanian Football Team in their friendly tournament concluded last month in Colombo. Also, National Team toured Japan and South Korea for the training sessions and they played few practice matches and it was a good opportunity for the team.
Sri Lankan Team consists with 20 players and most of the players are new and young players among them. Asela Madushan is the only school player in this squad, who represents St. Joseph College, Colombo. Anuruddha Warakagoda, Subash Madhushan, Charith Rathnayake are the experienced players and Goal Keeper Sujan Perera currently playing the Eagles Football Club in Maldives and he is the only professional Footballer in this squad.
“We are very confident and hopeful on the team. They could get international experience by touring Japan and South Korea recently. Also, we conducted practice sessions continuously for few months and we are hoping that the team will do their best to move forward in the tournament” said the Head Coach Mr. Nizam Packeer Ali.
