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| Kathmandu, Friday December 20, 2002 Paush 05, 2059. |
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Int’l tournament to grace
Dashrath Stadium
Post Report
LALITPUR, Dec 19:Capital’s Dashrath
Stadium, after a long drought, will be awashed with colours of international teams with
the beginning of the AFC Under-14 Festival of Football on Friday.
The six-team tournament kicks off with the match
between Nepal and Maldives.
There weren’t any competitive international
football tournaments in the last two years due to the leadership controversy in the All
Nepal Football Association (ANFA). The last international football tournament played in
the Dashrath Stadium was the qualifying matches of the Asian U-16 Championship on June
2000.
The football festival, designed to promote
football from the root by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) under its development
programme, features six South Asian countries including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan,
Maldives, India and the hosts Nepal.
All the team members participating at the
carnival have arrived in the capital as Maldives take on Nepal, Bhutan face Sri Lanka and
India meet Bangladesh in the opening day on Friday. The matches played under round robin
league format, will be of 60 minutes duration.
The coaches and officials here are pinning high
hopes on the youngsters, who are indulged in football for more than two years.
"The youngsters have done pretty well in
the training session and if they convert the same at the matches, Nepal will be the
champions," said the recently appointed Nepali South Korean coach Yoaw Ki Hyoung.
Hyoung is little bit skeptic over neighbouring
India and Bangladesh about the genuine selection of players. "It will be very tough
for us if Bangladesh and India field over-aged players," the coach added. India and
Bangladesh had fielded over-aged players in past and were punished by the AFC. The trend
has been common in South Asian context. Nepal was also forced to pay fine and its U-16
team was banned for a year from the international football for fielding over-aged players
in May 2001.
Assistant coach Kishore KC is pretty confident
that the team is made up of genuine U-14 players. "There aren’t any over-aged
players in our squad," KC said confidently. "Almost all the players of the team
were brought up in our vigil as they are the products of ANFA Academy." There are
three ANFA Academies at Gyanodaya School, Laboratory School and Depot School (Dharan)
currently in charge. "The players have been studying at those Academies before they
were 12 under our guidance," he added.
The players were selected out of 277 young
footballers following an inter-academy selection football tournament. A total of 30
players featured at the preliminary camp and 18 out of them made it to the final camp held
at ANFA Complex Satdobato.
Hyoung, who is the Nepali national side chief
coach as well, also sees potentials for the national players on the U-14 players.
"Boys like Nirajan Khadka, Subash Gurung, Sandeep Rai, Sanjiv Shrestha, Shishir
Adhikari, Krishna Lama are dependable and if they play well, we will be the
champions," he said. "But the first match will reveal how they play throughout
the championship," he added.
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