Bangladesh hope to avoid mauling against Australia

Bangladesh are hoping to avoid another mauling at the hands of Australia when the men in red and green square off against the Aussies in their home match of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers at the Bashundhara Kings Arena on June 6

In the earlier leg, the Socceroos crushed Bangladesh 7-0 at the Aami Park in Melbourne in November last year.

The wounds from that defeat are still fresh as the players hope to put up a fight against the 24th-ranked Australia in their backyard.

"Everyone knows that Australia are stronger than us but all of us are ready and fit to play against them," said midfielder Sohel Rana today after the team's first training session ahead of the second leg match.

"We don't want a repeat of what happened in Australia at home. We can perform well at our home ground and all of us are confident about playing better against them by making use of our home advantage… We faced problems in the cold weather in Melbourne," he added.

The midfielder also said that they are hopeful to up a better showing against the Aussies in familiar conditions.

"If you look back, we have played well at the Bashundhara Kings arena. We were about to win the match against Palestine but we conceded the goal in the last moment," Sohel said.

"Australia will be trying to capitalise on our silly mistakes while we will be trying to not make the same errors and give our best, which we could not do in November."

Echoing the same sentiment, Tapu Barman, who missed the Melbourne tie, said, "We don't want to lose the way we lost against them [Australia] earlier. We want to give them a good fight and will try not to concede a goal for as long as we can."

Australia have already announced their 25-member preliminary for the tie against Bangladesh, changing nearly half of the squad that squashed Bangladesh last November.