Abahani off to India Today

Abahani return to Bordoloi Trophy after 15 years when the Bangladesh professional league champions take part in the 56th edition of Assam's premier football tournament.

This time, the sky-blues will aim a better performance after finishing runners-up in 1992 when they lost to Kolkata giants East Bengal in the final. Weather permitting, a 30-member Abahani squad including 20 footballers will leave Dhaka this morning by air for Kolkata en route to Guwahati, the largest north-eastern city of India, where the preliminary rounds of the tournament begun on November 8 with 16 teams.

The final is slated for November 24. Abahani will play in the second stage where two groups of three teams each vie for the semifinals. The Dhaka heavyweights are scheduled to play their first match on Sunday but manager Satyajit Das Rupu could not confirm their opponents.Bangkok Port Authority Club of Thailand, the 1979 and 1993 winners, are the other foreign team to play directly into the second stage where they will joined by Goa's Vasco and Mumbai-based ONGC among others."

So far, our preparation has been satisfactory but our plans had to be changed at the eleventh hour as Elijah Junior cannot travel with us due to technical problems," informed Rupu. Nigerian striker Junior, top scorer in this year's inaugural B. League for Brothers Union, trained with Abahani as a guest player. The sky-blues hired Muktijoddha's national striker Saifur Rahman Moni and Farashganj's promising forward Mohammed Robin apart from Muktijoddha's Ghanaian defender Charles Ghansah for the trip." Junior looked good (in training) but Moni and Robin are national players too. So I don't think our attack has would be weak," said Abahani captain Arif Khan Joy. The holding midfielder, also an ex-national captain, said their target is to emulate Brothers, who are the only team from Bangladesh to win the trophy.

Brothers defeated Shillong XI in penalty shootout in the 2004 final while a Dhaka XI and Dhaka Mohammedan ended as losing finalists in 1972 and 1989." I won't say we have fantastic preparation but the fitness of the players is very good. Our preliminary target is to win the two group matches to secure a semifinal place," said the Abahani skipper." After that everything becomes knockout. If we go as far as the final, it would be a great preparation for the Friendship Cup, which starts in Dhaka on November 28. Playing in front of the home crowd again would be a great motivation."I feel the Friendship Cup would be a hit among the crowd as an international club tournament is being held here after a long time."

Joy added that the club officials are contemplating continue the training with a short break after the two tournaments." If the next professional league transfers start in January as per schedule, we will definitely continue camp." We don't know who our first-match opponents are. The first game is vital and I hope it would be easy for us to get accustomed to the conditions as the weather is expected to cool down this time of the year," he said adding that he was hopeful Mohammed Sujan would be fit enough to play during the tournament." His improvement has been remarkable. He may not start in the first match but if we advance to the knockout stage, I feel he will play," Joy said of the injured national centre-back who has had been out of action for more than a year. This year's tournament holds special attraction as organisers Guwahati Sports Association has decided to revive the Bordoloi Trophy as a part of its golden jubilee celebrations.