- Set to meet Bhutan in FIFA Friendly on 8 June
- Ultimate prize motivates team: FFSL President
Sri Lanka will launch their campaign to regain the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship title on the road, when they fly out on Monday (1 June) to face Bhutan in a FIFA Men’s International Friendly in Bangkok, according to Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) President Jaswar Umar.
He said that the team had carried out extensive preparation ahead of the 8 June fixture in neutral venue Thailand, and sounded confident that the players were ready to hit the ground running next week.
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Sports, Umar said: “This particular game will give us tremendous exposure in our drive to reclaim the SAFF title later this year,” looking at the prospects of his team in the lead-up to the match.
He added: “The boys have been hard at practice under the guidance of our Head Coach Abdullah Almutairi, and with the fine form they are in at the moment, I expect them to return home with an emphatic win.”
The clash on 8 June will be Sri Lanka’s only second international for this year, after they crushed Chinese Taipei in Taipei 3-1 as part of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup Qualifiers Final Round Group D match on 31 March.
Sri Lanka, stacked with origin players who mostly ply their trade abroad, will go into the forthcoming encounter holding the upper hand in head-to-head contests against Bhutan, having clinched five wins to two losses in seven ties to date.
Although Sri Lanka historically bossed early meetings in the SAFF Championship, Bhutan scripted one of the most famous chapters in international football history by shocking the former in 2015.
In March of that year, Bhutan were ranked 209th – dead last in the FIFA World Rankings – when they drew with Sri Lanka in the first round of FIFA World Cup Qualifiers.
In a massive upset, Bhutan defeated Sri Lanka 1-0 in Colombo and followed it up with a 2-1 victory in Thimphu; this historic double eliminated Sri Lanka and put Bhutanese football on the global map.
Since that heady success, however, the Bhutanese are still seeking their first victory over the island nation, and the pressure will be on them to overcome the resurgent Lankan XI.
Following a long hiatus, the two nations faced off during the FIFA Series 2024 Friendly Tournament hosted in Colombo, where the Lankans avenged their previous qualifier losses by defeating Bhutan 2-0, re-establishing their regional foothold.
Umar, however, has cast his eye on the much bigger prize waiting for Sujan Perera’s men in November this year, where they will compete in the SAFF Championship looking to be crowned as regional champions after a 31-year wait.
Their last and only success in the showpiece football tournament of the region was back in 1995 under Sampath Perera, when they beat India 1-0 in the final in Colombo. The tournament was then known as the Bristol SAARC Gold Cup.
That landmark victory has been heavily romanticised in Sri Lankan football history, and it continues to serve as the benchmark for local footballers, even recently inspiring the game’s controlling body to launch its own Win SAFF Again campaign.
“That is the ultimate prize that motivates us. But that does not mean we take our foot off the gas and ignore what is around the corner. These are all professional players, they know the requirements, and they also know the importance of keeping their feet on the ground,” the FFSL President said in response to claims that the team would get carried away by looking too far ahead.
He added that the form of the team since 2024, where they had won nine, lost nine, and drawn four, rising from 207th in FIFA World Ranking up to 191st globally, also further fuelled hope for a successful shot at SAFF glory in Dhaka in six months’ time.