2018 Bangabandhu Cup

The 2018 Bangabandhu Gold Cup or simply 2018 Bangabandhu Cup was an international association football tournament organized by the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) as a tribute to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. This was the 5th edition of the tournament with six teams competing from 1 to 12 October 2018.^[1]

2018 Bangabandhu Gold Cup

Tournament details
Host country	Bangladesh
Dates	1–12 October 2018
Teams	6 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	3 (in 3 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Palestine (1st title)
Runners-up	Tajikistan
Tournament statistics
Matches played	9
Goals scored	15 (1.67 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Komron Tursunov (2 goals)
Best player(s)	Abdelatif Bahdari
← 2016 2020 →

Participating teams

Six nations competed in the tournament.^[2] BFF president Kazi Salahuddin has previously stated that the BFF wanted to get one team from each of the Asian Football Confederation's sub-confederations.^[3] Afghanistan was also reported as a potential participant.^[4] All teams were the first teams except for the Philippines which brought their second team.^[5]

Country	FIFA Ranking1	Previous best performance
Bangladesh (Host)	193	Runners-up (2015)
Laos	178	N/A (Debut)
Nepal	160	Winners (2016)
Palestine	100	N/A (Debut)
Philippines	114	N/A (Debut)
Tajikistan	120	N/A (Debut)

Draw

The draw took place on 1 September 2018 at the Le Méridien Dhaka Hotel in Dhaka. The six teams were drawn into two groups with three teams each for the group stage.^[2][6]

Venues

Matches were played in three venues. The Sylhet District Stadium in Sylhet hosted the group stage matches while the Cox's Bazar Stadium in Cox's Bazar hosted the semifinals. The Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka was the venue for the final.^[7]

Dhaka	Sylhet	Cox's Bazar
Bangabandhu National Stadium	Sylhet District Stadium	Cox's Bazar Stadium
Capacity: 36,000	Capacity: 25,000	Capacity: 5,000
Dhaka Sylhet Cox's Bazar

Officials

Referees Çarymyrat Kurbanow Mahmood Al-Majarafi Zaid Thamer Mohammed Shen Yinhao Mohamed Mizanur Rahman Mohammed Jalal Uddin

Assistant Referees Rawut Nakarit Loku Kasthotage Iran Udayakantha Aung Moe Sarar Asit Kumar Mohammad Shah Alam Mahmud Hasan Mamud

Group stage

• Times listed are UTC+6:00.

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Palestine	2	2	0	0	3	0	+3	6	Advance to knockout stage
2	Tajikistan	2	1	0	1	2	2	0	3
3	Nepal	2	0	0	2	0	3	−3	0

Source: Soccerway

2 October 2018 (2018-10-02)

18:30

Nepal	0–2	Tajikistan
	Report	Fatkhuloev 27' (pen.) Tursunov 69'

Sylhet District Stadium, Sylhet

Attendance: 6,000

Referee: Shen Yinhao (China)

---

4 October 2018 (2018-10-04)

18:30

Tajikistan	0–2	Palestine
	Report	Cantillana 1' Bahdari 75'

Sylhet District Stadium, Sylhet

Referee: Mizanur Rahman (Bangladesh)

---

6 October 2018 (2018-10-06)

18:30

Palestine	1–0	Nepal
Salem 70'	Report

Sylhet District Stadium, Sylhet

Referee: Mohammed Jalal Uddin (Bangladesh)

Group B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Philippines	2	2	0	0	4	1	+3	6	Advance to knockout stage
2	Bangladesh (H)	2	1	0	1	1	1	0	3
3	Laos	2	0	0	2	1	4	−3	0

Source: Soccerway
(H) Hosts

1 October 2018 (2018-10-01)

18:30

Bangladesh	1–0	Laos
Biplu 60'	Report

Sylhet District Stadium, Sylhet

Referee: Mahmood Al-Majarafi (Oman)

---

3 October 2018 (2018-10-03)

18:30

Philippines	3–1	Laos
Bedic 44' (pen.) Gayoso 53' Bahadoran 82' (pen.)	Report	Kongmathilath 88' (pen.)

Sylhet District Stadium, Sylhet

Referee: Çarymyrat Kurbanow (Turkmenistan)

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5 October 2018 (2018-10-05)

18:30

Bangladesh	0–1	Philippines
	Report	Daniels 24'

Sylhet District Stadium, Sylhet

Referee: Zaid Thamer Mohammed (Iraq)

Knockout stage

• Times listed are UTC+6:00
• In the knockout stage, extra-time and a penalty shoot-out was used to decide the winner if necessary.

Bracket

	Semi-finals				Final
	9 October – Cox's Bazar
	Philippines	0
					12 October – Dhaka
	Tajikistan	2
					Tajikistan	0 (3)
	10 October – Cox's Bazar
					Palestine (p)	0 (4)
	Palestine	2
	Bangladesh	0

Semi-finals

9 October 2018 (2018-10-09)

14:30

Philippines	0–2	Tajikistan
	Report	Tursunov 31' Nazarov 90+7'

Cox's Bazar Stadium, Cox's Bazar

Referee: Mahmood Al-Majarafi (Oman)

---

10 October 2018 (2018-10-10)

14:30

Palestine	2–0	Bangladesh
Balah 8' Maraaba 90+4'	Report

Cox's Bazar Stadium, Cox's Bazar

Referee: Zaid Thamer Mohammed (Iraq)

Final

12 October 2018 (2018-10-12)

17:30

Tajikistan	0–0 (a.e.t.)	Palestine
	Report
Penalties
O. Abdugafforov Nazarov Asrorov Tursunov Davlatmir	3–4	Cantillana Al Iwisat Al-Batat Bahdari

Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka

Referee: Mizanur Rahman (Bangladesh)

Goalscorers

There were 15 goals scored in 9 matches, for an average of 1.67 goals per match.

2 goals

• Komron Tursunov

1 goal

• Biplu Ahmed
• Phithack Kongmathilath
• Abdelatif Bahdari
• Mohammed Balah
• Jonathan Cantillana
• Sameh Maraaba
• Khaled Salem
• Jovin Bedic
• Misagh Bahadoran
• Kenshiro Daniels
• Javier Gayoso
• Fatkhullo Fatkhuloev
• Akhtam Nazarov

Sponsorship

Local sports marketing company K-Sports bought the rights for this edition of the tournament and provided all the expenditures.^[3]