Bangladesh coach Javier Cabrera will be dealing with a headache as he looks to get his playing eleven right during the upcoming SAFF Championship, especially following the booters' dismal performances in March's friendlies against Seychelles.

The 38-year-old Spaniard has already announced a 35-member preliminary squad, which will be trimmed to 27 ahead of the start of a residential camp on June 4. He will then finalise a 23-memebr squad for the regional football extravaganza, which is scheduled to be held in Bengaluru from June 21.

Although Cabrera has set his sights high, aiming to take Bangladesh to the semifinals after missing out in the past five editions since 2009, selecting a playing eleven appears a tough task given the dearth of quality players and the omission of a few players he trusted in past due to waning performances or injury.

Following his appointment in 2022, Cabrera experimented in his first two friendly assignments, losing 2-0 to Maldives and drawing against Mongolia.

He then settled on a team during a third friendly against Indonesia, which ended 0-0, and fielded the same eleven throughout his first assignment, the Asian Cup Quailfiers. His team put up determined performances but lost all three games, falling 2-0 to Bahrain, 1-2 to Turkmenistan and 1-4 to Malaysia.

During that qualifying campaign, Cabrera banked on Anisur Rahman Zico, Yeasin Arafat, Tutul Hossain Badsha, Bishwanath Ghosh, Rimon Hossain, Jamal Bhuiyan, Biplu Ahmed, Atiqur Rahman Fahad, Rakib Hossain, Mohammad Ibrahim and Sazzad Hossain.

It appeared Cabrera would stick to those players during friendly matches in September last year, but he again opted to tinker, making a few changes that paid off in a 1-0 win against Cambodia but backfired afterwards in a 3-1 loss to Nepal.

Cabrera's experimentation continued into 2023 as he made seven changes to the team that lost to Nepal during two friendlies against Seychelles in March. But again the changes did not pan out as an unimpressive Bangladesh toiled to a 1-0 win before going down in the second match by the same margin.

Cabrera had also opted to field players outside their regular positions but those moves were largely ineffective in the matches against Seychelles.

With Bangladesh's biggest campaign knocking at the door, the Spaniard is expected to face a huge challenge in picking the right combination.

With midfielders Fahad, Biplu, Jafar Iqbal and some others not in the 35-member preliminary squad, Cabrera will have just one chance to test out whatever combination he settles on during next month's friendly against Cambodia a week ahead of the SAFF Championship. If Cabrera really want to get out of the group stage comprising two strong opponents Lebanon and Maldives, he will need to make the most of the players at his disposal and the new faces in the team.