For Afeida Khandaker, just 18 and already captain of Bangladesh’s national women’s football team, history is only the beginning. “This achievement isn’t just ours – it belongs to every girl in Bangladesh who dares to dream,” she said to The Guardian after her side qualified for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup for the first time. “We’re only just getting started. We want to show the world what Bangladesh is truly capable of.”
The breakthrough comes after a record leap of 24 places in the FIFA rankings, the biggest rise of any nation this cycle. To Khandaker, the climb is proof of something deeper. “It’s proof of what faith, hard work, and unity can achieve. But we’re not stopping here. The next few months of preparation will be tough but we are up for the challenge.”
Football has always been personal for the teenage captain, who traces her passion back to her father’s conviction that daughters deserved their place on the pitch. “He wanted to prove that girls could play football just as well as boys, if not better, and pushed us harder than anyone else. At home he was our ‘abbu’ [father], but on the field he was our coach and he never gave us a day off.”
That kind of support has shaped the whole squad’s journey. “We’re really lucky to have supportive parents and hope our success inspires other girls to pursue sport without self-doubt. We’ve worked really hard to get to where we are but without a proper support system none of it would have been possible.”
Yet barriers remain. “It’s sad that there are people who still think girls shouldn’t be playing football. Bangladeshi women are leading in all aspects of the public sphere. The pitch should be no exception.”
And through it all, Khandaker continues to dream bigger. She remembers sitting with her family in 2022, watching the World Cup on television. “I remember wishing I could be there. It felt impossible at the time, but as I stood in that vast stadium, I wondered what other dreams of mine were within reach.”
Next stop is Australia, and with it the chance to test those dreams on one of football’s grandest stages.