The road to Moscow 2018 begins with Sri Lanka v Bhutan starting off the Asian Qualifying on the 12th of March at 3.00pm at the Sugathadasa Stadium.
Just eight months after the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil concluded with Germany lifting the Trophy at the Maracana, the bid for the next global extravaganza at Russia 2018 takes center stage with Asia’s qualifying first round kicking off on Thursday.
Six pairs of the continent’s lower ranked sides will battle over two legs, on 12 and 17 March, with the aggregate winners progressing to join the remaining 34 teams in the next stage. This phase also serves as the first round qualification for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. With so much at stake, the competition looks set to capture the imagination of football fans near and far.
Ranked 209th in the world, Bhutan is officially the lowest ranked football nation who will making their World Cup qualifying debut and eyeing a first win of any sorts since 2008. For Bhutan 
coach Chokey Nima it is all about playing their best against Sri Lanka.
“We have been training hard in the past few months and the players are ready to prove a point.” Nima said at the Pre-match press conference.
Bhutan have only three wins to their name — against Afghanistan, Montserrat and Guam — and were beaten 5-2 by Sri Lanka in their last international match at the 2013 South Asian Football Championships in Kathmandu. Bhutan also suffered a 3-0 defeat to Afghanistan and were thrashed 8-2 by Maldives during the same tournament. Bhutan’s last win came in 2008 against Afghanistan in the SAFF Championship at the same venue they’ll meet Sri Lanka on the 12th.
Coach Chokey Nima said the team, whose players range in age from 16 to 28, spent a week training in Thailand to acclimatize.
“Usually you need about two weeks, and we tried to use the one week we had in Thailand in an efficient way to adapt to conditions here,” he said.
One of the few professionals is striker Chencho Gyeltshen who plays for Thai side Buriram United. Despite their lack of experience, 24-year-old skipper Karma Shedrup Tshering is confident his young team will be able to put up a good show on Thursday against the higher ranked Sri Lankans.
“The world ranking does not matter,” he said. “It is just a number. It is not a reflection of our performance, but the frequency of matches that we have played.” Shedrup added in a bullish manner.
Sri Lanka Football Team. Pic by Sameera Peiris ©ThePapare
For Sri Lanka it will also be a huge match after concentrating all their resources on this big match in last six months. After the SAFF Championship debacle where they lost to Maldives 10-0 Sri Lanka has had a new coach in Serbian, Nikola Kavazovic and almost completely overhauled the squad and assembled one where the average age is 22.
“We sacrificed all three matches in the Bangabandhu Gold Cup in preparation for this match against Bhutan.” Kavazovic said at the Press Conference.
“We tried 5-6 different systems to get to know the best system for the team and identify the suitable players for those systems.”
Under his guidance Sri Lanka had successful friendly tours to Seychelles and Bangladesh and also the Bangabandhu Gold Cup where the defensive structure looked solid as opposed to the forward line which failed to score any goals.
“I am not worried about the forward line. Sanjeeva & Shanmugaraja will play and I have faith in them. Since the Bangabandhu Gold Cup we had a month of training and made necessary tactical drills and concentrated more than 60% of our training on attack. So we are very well prepared.” He went onto say.
“This is a very important match for us to go forward in the game, we are going all out.” Sri Lanka skipper Chathuranga Sanjeeva finally added.
The match will be live streamed on ThePapare.com from 1500 local time.
