The Bangladesh Under-20 women’s football team will look to continue their impressive form when they take on hosts Laos today in their opening Group H fixture of the AFC U-20 Women’s Asian Cup Qualifiers. The match kicks off at 6:30pm local time at the Lao National Stadium in Vientiane.
From the senior national side to the youth teams, Bangladesh have shown encouraging progress under English coach Peter Butler. Just last month, Butler led the senior women’s team to a historic qualification for the Women’s Asian Cup for the first time. Shortly after, he guided the U-20 squad to an unbeaten title-winning campaign in the SAFF U-20 Women’s Championship on home soil.
With a squad that blends senior experience and emerging talent from the SAFF tournament, Butler’s charges will aim to carry that momentum into the qualifiers. However, their history at this level offers little comfort, having failed to progress past the qualifiers in five previous attempts between 2006 and 2023.
There was, however, a sign of progress in the last edition. Bangladesh secured a convincing 4-0 win over Turkmenistan before narrowly losing 1-0 to Iran, who scored the decisive goal just five minutes from full time to top the group.
This campaign presents another tough challenge, not least because of the presence of two-time champions South Korea in the group. Still, Bangladesh remain optimistic about their chances, especially in their matches against Timor-Leste and Laos.
“Our goal is to make an impact,” said Peter Butler during the pre-tournament briefing in Vientiane. “I think the most important thing is we know we’re streets behind [South] Korea in terms of their actual professionalism, organisation, investment, quality of players, etc.
“We’ve restarted… we’ve achieved a long-term goal by qualifying for the Women’s Asian Cup next March. Obviously, this is a very, very important competition for us in terms of seeing where we are, and in terms of development at the U-20 level.”
Captain Afeida Khandokar added: “We have come here to qualify for the finals and we will be trying our level best to display a good show in every match.”
While South Korea are clear favourites to top the four-team group, Bangladesh could still qualify for the 12-team final round by finishing among the three best runners-up from eight groups. That would likely require strong wins against both Timor-Leste and Laos, along with a disciplined performance against South Korea.
Laos remain something of an unknown for Bangladesh, although they have shown their potential in past editions, beating Myanmar 4-2 in 2018 and holding the Philippines to a 2-2 draw last time out.
Nevertheless, Bangladesh’s young women have been reshaping expectations in recent months. They will now aim to extend that run of form on a larger Asian stage.