Six years ago, a young Bangladesh women's football team suffered a 3-0 defeat against their Singaporean counterparts in a Tri-nation Cup in Singapore. However, those girls are much more matured now, so much so that they are confident of beating the Singaporeans as the two teams square off in two FIFA friendly matches in Dhaka.

The Singapore team, who were scheduled to arrive in Dhaka in the early hours of Thursday, will play the two matches against their hosts at the Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium on December 1 and 4.

In February 2017, as part of preparation for Bangladesh under-16 women's team for the finals of the AFC U-16 Women's Championship in Thailand, Bangladesh women's team played against Singapore with only three senior players. The team conceded the 3-0 defeat conceding goals in the ninth, 39th and 48th minutes respectively.

Six years after that match, the likes of Maria Manda, Monika Chakma, Sanjida Khatun, Shamsunnahar Sr, Krishna Rani Sarker and others have grown stronger and have already won the SAFF Women's Championship by beating India and Nepal. They are also much more experienced now, having rubbed shoulders with former world champions Japan and Asian powerhouse Vietnam in this year's Asian Games.

So with those experience behind them, the women in red and green are confident about beating Singapore, who are ranked 130th in the world -- 12 places ahead of Bangladesh.

"We are a much more balanced side now than we were in 2017 because we have improved a lot technically, tactically and physically," captain Sabina said at a press briefing yesterday.

"We hope the spectators will turn up to watch two challenging matches where we want to entertain our them and keep the trend of women's football we have established. Obviously, our target is to win both matches."

Echoing the sentiment of Sabina, vice-captain Maria Manda said, "We are getting the opportunity to play friendly matches again and we will be trying to give our level best to win both matches."

Head coach Saiful Bari Titu, however, wants to focus on the first of the two matches against Singapore.

"The team was in a good shape after the Asian Games and we are trying to maintain the same shape. Now we are looking forward to going match by match because Singapore are an unknown opposition for us," Titu said.