Poor soccer show against high hopes

BY NARAYAN UPADHYAY

Kathmandu, July 14: Expectations that ran high that Nepalese Under-19 soccer team would do magic in Bangladesh took a sharp plunge following its two defeats and one draw in the four team Group-4 qualifying round matches of Asian Under-19 Youth Championship held last week in Bangladesh’s city of Rajshahi.

The team, despite All Nepal Football Association’s President Ganesh Thapa expressing his good wishes and suggestion to the team to do better in Bangladesh prior to the team leaving for Bangladesh, did not produce as good a result as the Nepalese Under-16 team had done about one and half month ago.

In every misadventure, there must be some cause to rue over. And the Nepalese team’s unexpected performance in Bangladesh had its own cause to lament about: the scorching heat and high humidity, lack of intensive preparation and poor capability to acclimatisation to alien condition. All this took its heavy toll on Nepalese team that returned without scoring a single goal in the whole tournament comprising four teams of Asia-Nepal, Iraq, Bangladesh, and the Maldives .

All Nepal Football President Ganesh Thapa is of the view that the team did not get as much preparation as it should have due to some tight schedules back home leading to the under-performance by the team.

"Our team lacked proper coaching and preparation time as the month-long Martyrs League as well Under-16 qualifying tournament took our most of the time. That was why we failed to provide intensive coaching to Under-19 team," ANFA president Thapa said.

Gamewise, as expected, Nepal could not do well against Asian football powerhouse- the Iraqi team that enjoyed the luxury of having physically robust and superior players with amazing football sense and techniques.

The mostly diminutive Himalayan Kingdom players, defenders and goalkeeper included, did well to fend off Iraqi attacks till the 14th minute but gave way afterwards in the sweltering heat of Rajshahi, the division headquarters of northern Bangladesh that lies about 300 KM north-west of Dhaka. For Nepalese youth, it was a tale no one liked to hear— they lost 7-0 to Iraq.

"We did not expect 7-0 result against Iraq though Iraq was regarded a soccer power house. But then, our lack of intensive coaching reflected on the result too," President Thapa said.

Against the host, Nepal, playing before the vociferous crowd of packed Rajshahi Stadium got two clear chances. But striker Sal Bahadur’s nimble foot wasted the chance. Nepal played above average and held the powerful Bangladesh, packed with professional players, to a goalless draw till the first half.

Nepal went down to the host 2-0 conceding both goals in the second half due to lack of effective clearance on the part of defenders Vivek Shrestha, Naresh Thapa and captain Rajendra Tamang.

Nepalese youth were confident to win against lowly Maldivians who suffered a 6-0 and 4-1 humiliation against Iraq and the host respectively. Man-of-the-match Hari Thakuri, Sal Bahadur and Rajiv Shrestha and even midfielders Naresh Shrestha, Deepak Poudel and Rabin Byanjankar combined well to end the deadlock throughout the match but were denied the scoring opportunity partly due to dogged Maldivian defence and partly due to bad luck of Nepalese strikers.

" The result against the host Bangladesh and the Maldives should be taken as positive one for us because despite losing against the host and playing a goalless draw, our players, who played under alien condition and scorching heat, did well," said President Thapa, former national soccer skipper. "Moreover the exposure to international tournament will do good for our youth in future," Thapa opined. So far as Iraqi team is concerned, it played like group champions against Nepal and the Maldives but had to struggle hard to avoid impending defeat till the 75th minute against the host in its final fixture.

The host, after beating Nepal and the Maldives, was just twenty minutes away from entering into the final round to be held in Iran later this year.

The Bangla booters, who played all their fixtures in the newly installed floodlights in the city stadium of Rajshahi apparently to avoid the heat and humidity, had taken 1-0 lead through a header of its striker Kanchan in the 20th minute and continued to raid into rival area. But an opportunist equaliser from Iraq midfielder denied it any chance to book a ticket for Iran.

The host, ostensibly, won all applause from its fans as it pushed the powerful Iraq into the corner. The Iraqi team really survived by the scruff its neck in its last bid and managed to fetch a berth for Iran on better goal aggregate.

At the end of the tournament, it seemed as smooth as it were planned by some unseen forces— the champions getting group winners tag, the host satisfying with runners-up slot while visitors Maldives and Nepal receiving third and fourth positions respectively.

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