Our friends at GWSports.com recently profiled GW men’s soccer player Farhan Khan, who trained with the Bangladesh National Team this summer. Find out what Khan experienced in Bangladesh–and why he turned down an offer to train with the national team again:
GW men’s soccer junior Farhan Khan trained with the Bangladesh National Team for three days this summer as it prepared for the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship.
Khan, who was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Bangladesh before moving to Virginia for high school, spent six weeks visiting family in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and received an invitation to national team camp after a few of his teammates on the recreational league team he was playing with spoke to the new national team coaches.
“The camp was a great experience for me because I was playing alongside the best players in Bangladesh,” said Khan, who started 16 games at midfield for the Colonials in 2012. “The players were much older and more experienced, and I learned a lot from them. I was surprised at how similar the training sessions were to what we do at GW; it really helped me because I didn’t feel out of place or taken aback by new drills.”
Khan trained with the team twice a day for three days in July and was asked to return, but he had to leave for the U.S. – “I had a commitment to GW and I wasn’t going to jeopardize my studies,” he said.” However, Head Coach Lodewijk de Kruif asked Khan to keep in touch.
“I haven’t really thought about the future that much, but (playing for the national team) is definitely something that I will consider once I have finished at GW,” Khan said.
The Bangladesh National Team has never qualified for the World Cup but reached the finals of three straight SAFF Championships from 1999-2005 with a title in 2003.
This article by Jessica Bernheim originally appeared on GWSports.com on Aug. 6, 2013.
