Ronan and Declan Sullivan, twin brothers from Philadelphia, won the Under-20 South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship with Bangladesh in April, a victory that has ignited a recruitment drive among the country's global diaspora under new senior coach Thomas Dooley.
The brothers, who have Irish names and maternal Bangladeshi ancestry, sealed the title with a panenka penalty in a scoreless final against India on 3 April in Malé, Maldives. Ronan, who had only attempted the chip twice before in practice, told his brother Declan he would take the fifth penalty. “He didn’t even need to say it. I knew he was gonna do that the whole time,” Declan recalled. “I knew that if he got the last pen to win it, he was gonna do that. That’s just the him thing to do.” The ball went in, and the crowd erupted.
From Instagram DM to national heroes
The journey began less than two years earlier when the twins exchanged messages on Instagram with the “Save Bangladesh Football” fan page, which connected them to federation vice-president Fahad Karim. They had never visited Bangladesh before a tryout for the U-20 squad, and obtaining passports was complicated because their mother did not have one. In March, they flew from New York to Delhi and then to Dhaka, the longest journey of their lives.
At the camp, they joined more than 30 players, including three other “origin” players, and faced a language barrier on the pitch. “When you’re foreign, it’s harder to get the ball at first because you don’t speak the language and maybe the guys weren’t super thrilled that we’re there,” Ronan said. After a few days of training, they were confident of making the roster. The support in the Maldives was overwhelming, and they returned to a heroes’ welcome in Dhaka. “We met a bunch of people, and everyone was so happy and so grateful that we brought the trophy back to the country,” Declan said.
Dooley’s diaspora project
Seven weeks after the U-20 triumph, Thomas Dooley, a former US men’s national team captain, was announced as head coach of the Bangladesh senior team. He spent most of his coaching career in Southeast Asia and now leads Bangladesh into a new World Cup cycle. “We are a country of being fans. We need to change that. We need to be a country of playing football,” Dooley told the Guardian.
Dooley defends the right of players with Bangladeshi roots to choose the national team, pointing to Leicester City midfielder Hamza Choudhury as a cornerstone. He is receiving “thousands” of messages about potential players but stresses budgetary constraints. “We are not spending $2,000, $3,000 on a player to bring him over, and he’s sitting on the bench,” he said. He believes improving the team’s decision-making can lift them 20 to 30%, and climbing into the 150s of the FIFA rankings is achievable.
World Cup dream
No country from the Indian subcontinent has ever appeared at a men’s or women’s World Cup, but the brothers and Dooley are dreaming of qualification. “Whenever I think about the 64 team [World Cup], I’m thinking, ‘Look, if we get all these players, we have a chance to qualify.’ Like, that’s the dream. That’s the ultimate goal,” Declan said. He mentioned former Union academy teammate Nehan Hasan and Stanford striker Trevor Islam as possible additions.
Dooley’s immediate focus is the senior SAFF Championship in Bangladesh in November, which Bangladesh have won only once, as hosts in 2003. He plans to become more involved in domestic development, hoping the senior team’s success drives interest and investment in a proper pyramid. “We would love to have the kids not want to be a fan of Argentina. They want to be a player to play against Argentina, against Brazil,” he said.
