Morsalin to miss Palestine matches

Promising forward Sheikh Morsalin is all set to miss out on the home-and-away fixtures of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers against Palestine in March, informed national team coach Javier Cabrera.

After missing out on the home-and-away matches against Maldives in pre-qualifiers due to disciplinary reasons, Morsalin came back to the fold in the home match against Lebanon and scored the equaliser to help Bangladesh come out with a 1-1 draw against the higher-ranked side in November last year.

"Obviously unfortunate for him [Morsalin] that he is going to miss the windows and the games [against Palestine]," Cabrera said at the BFF House while talking to the reporters about the team's preparation.

"But when someone isn't there, it's an opportunity for others. What we say is there is no special player in our team; what makes us strong is the collective effort and I am sure someone will come [in place of Morsalin] and outperform and it is a good opportunity for others to prove that they also have the level to play in the line-up."

Morsalin sustained an injury on nerves of his right leg during a Federation Cup match against Fortis FC in late December. Since then he not played a single of game for Bashundhara Kings. He has been in rehabilitation under the club physio and is likely to need another month to be fully match-fit.

Cabrera informed that they have been working on finalising the last details of the preparation camp in Saudi Arabia and trying to arrange at least two practice matches either against other national teams preparing in the region or local clubs before heading to Kuwait for the away match against Palestine on March 21. The home match will take place on March 26 at the Bashundhara Kings Arena.

The Spaniard also said that some under-23 players may get opportunity in the preliminary squad.

"We are quite happy with the improvement and development of several U-23 and U-20 players and some of them might be in the list and some of them will probably wait to keep progressing. I think the list will have several U-23 players," Cabrera said, adding that he is likely to call up 35 players primarily but 26 to 28 players are likely to fly out for the two-week preparation camp in Saudi Arabia.