The losing streak for the men’s national football team of Nepal continues unabated in international competition much to fans dismay and disappointment.
Team Nepal suffered yet another setback in the third round of the Group F 2027 Asian Cup Qualifiers recently. They lost both matches to hosts Vietnam & Malaysia.
Although they have one match against Laos left, they have exited from the qualifiers. Only the group winners advance to the final round.
Prior to the double header against Vietnam & Malaysia, they had to turn things around and could not afford to lose in order to keep themselves in the fray for the qualifying spot.
They landed in Vietnam winless, pointless and at the bottom of the table.They had to dig themselves out of the deep hole. Obviously, against the formidable home side,they had a mountain to climb and needed a consistent and outstanding performance to overcome the odds. Despite hopes of a comeback,they floundered yet again,losing both matches and faced elimination from the competition. They put in an improved performance, however, it was not enough to stop the hosts from walking away with the opener 3-1.
Vietnam took an early lead but much to the delight of Nepali fans it did not take long for Sanish Shrestha to score the equalizer. Nepal’s effort to upset the opposition was dealt a big blow when they were reduced to ten players, following Laken Limbu’s red card sent off at the fag end of the first half. Having to play with 10 players in the second half, they had their backs to the wall as the home team took total control of the proceedings and added to more goals to keep the match wrapped up.
In contrast to the first match, Nepal displayed competitiveness and gave the opponent a run for their money all the way to the end in the second match before going down 0-1. Defender Suman Shrestha’s own goal in the first half sealed the tie for Vietnam. Custodian Kiran Chemjong held his ground firm and made good saves to restrict the opposition to one goal. The takeover of the national team by Australian head coach Matt Ross early this year has had little or no impact in terms of team’s performance and results. I don’t blame the Aussie because he took over a struggling team going through a bad patch.
Coach Ross resigned from the post and former Nepal skipper Hari Khadka took charge of the team.
Nepal played their home match against Malaysia on November 18 under the leadership of Khadka. The team played a defensive game and settled with just 1-0 loss in Kuala Lumpur.
The absence of a professional domestic league,weak domestic football structure, poor grassroots football, lack of proper infrastructure and training facilities, coupled with maladministration continues to impact the performance of the national teams of all ages. In all fairness the coach is in no position to deliver what is expected of him under the situation. As a matter of fact,this has been an ongoing problem for several decades.
All Nepal Football Association(ANFA) has failed to address the issue at the cost of players putting their careers at a crossroads. The biggest irony is that the talent pool in Nepal is enormous, the popularity of football is at an all time high,and the private sector is actively involved in organizing and sponsoring tournaments across the country year round. Besides, a handful of players are playing in foreign leagues, which is a very encouraging sign.
Unfortunately, the football body has failed to capitalize on the opportunity to steer football and players development in the right direction, Yet again Nepal’s return match against Vietnam on home turf was moved to Vietnam, denying home fans to watch the match live in the stadium and rally around their team. Asian Football Confederation (AFC) made the decision based on security concerns due to the recent political unrest in the country and the poor state of Dasharath Stadium.
In fact, AFC concluded that the stadium did not meet international standards to host the match. This is not the first time Nepal has been denied to host the home leg match.There were several instances in the past when matches got moved away because of Dashrath Stadium’s unplayable conditions. The blame goes to ANFA for not taking lessons from their past mistakes and turning a blind eye to upgrading the stadium to required international standards. This is nothing but a clear case of negligence and incompetence on the part of ANFA.This has brought more shame and embarrassment to the country and denied football aficionados in the country the chance to watch their team in their home ground.This is totally unacceptable and shameful.
They were fully aware of the upcoming home match and had plenty of time to get the stadium ready for it.However, they chose not to, exposing their incompetence, irresponsibility, unaccountability and mismanagement further. Unless there is a brand new international standard stadium, the problem will persist. The government must prioritize the construction of a stadium to avert further embarrassment. As long as the football body is run by such incompetent and unprofessional people,there is nothing much we can expect from them when it comes to the upliftment of football.
To put it bluntly, given the current state of football,there is little room for us to become optimistic about the future of Nepal football. ANFA’s failed governance has taken a huge toll on players who have sacrificed their careers for football.The matter of fact is that all along footballers have been chasing their dreams of bringing laurels and glory for the country on the international stage.
By Sushil Thapa,Fairfax, VA, USA
