Nepal_women's_national_football_team

Nepal women's national football team

Nepal women's national football team

Women's national association football team representing Nepal

This article is about the women's team. For the men's team, see Nepal national football team.

The Nepal women's national football team is controlled by the All Nepal Football Association and represents Nepal in international women's football competitions. The Women's Football Department has been developed to control and manage the women's football activities. The official motto of women's football in Nepal is "Football for Change". It is a member of the Asian Football Confederation and the South Asian Football Federation and has yet to qualify for the World Cup.

Quick Facts Nickname(s), Association ...

History

Formation

First international football game in the Nepali women's football in 1984

Nepal formed a women's national team in the mid-1980s and debuted in the 1986 AFC Women's Championship. During the start of the tournament, Nepal played their first official match against Hong Kong (14 December 1986), which they lost with a score of 1–0. Nepal women's side also participated in the final three phases of the Asian Cup in 1986, 1989 and 1999, never going beyond the group stages. Nepal proved to be in a difficult group with former champions Thailand, alongside Indonesia and Hong Kong, two relatively strong teams. As a result, Nepal had lost all three matches, two of them jarringly, while the match against Hong Kong proved to be a steady profit. In 1989 Nepal played again in the championship, against the same opponents, except that Thailand was substituted against Japan. This resulted in meagre points for Nepal, who lost every game by a wide margin, the smallest 0–3 against Hong Kong.

Nepal's FIFA First Vice President was Kamal Thapa. Nepal's first woman captain was Rama Singh when the Nepali women's football team was created, Kamal Thapa was the president of the All Nepal Football Association. Singh, who represented the Bagmati team, started playing in 1985. The second national team's captain was Kamala Hirachan who also represented the Gandaki team and the third women captain was Meera Chaudhary who represented Naryani team. Singh later became the first newsreader in Nepali television history, and Chaudhary has held a rank of DSP in Nepal police. The first female international goal scorer of Nepal is Pema Dolma Lama, who scored a goal against Uzbekistan at the 1999 AFC Women's Championship held in Philippines.

Crisis years

As a result of the democracy uprising in 1990, there was an eight-year period without a women's national team. This negatively affected player recruitment, but nevertheless Nepal soon returned to international football during the Women's Asian Cup in 1999. Despite their triumphant return, the results were about the same as before the eight-year hiatus. The championship ended in the group-stage with Japan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and the Philippines, where Nepal lost all four games. Since then, Nepal has not appeared in the Women's Asian cup. Former men's national team technical director, Holger Obermann served as the technical advisor for the Chelis during their 1999 campaign.[2]

However, this did not mean that Nepal had not played football since 1999. The Mangladevi League, roughly a month-long women's football tourney, was set up trying to bring in women football players across the country. It was played in early 2000, in a league-cum-knockout basis. It was an initiative taken by a single person, but sadly discontinued after a year.[3]

Nepal had a long period without matches, but they impressed many in the South Asian Games in 2010, where they reached the final after beating several opponents by a wide margin. In the finals they lost narrowly 1–3 against the big favorite India. This gave the national team a much needed recognition. The 11th South Asian Games also were the first to host a women's football event as well.[4] In the opening match of the 2010 South Asian Games, Nepal women's U23 faced hosts Bangladesh, where they won with a single goal. The second match against Sri Lanka proved to be more illustrious as victory came in the form of 8 goals while holding a clean sheet. However, the scoring spree was short lived as the third group-stage match against India saw a heavy 0–5 loss. Nevertheless, Nepal had done enough to qualify for the second round (semi finals) against Pakistan which they won with a resounding 7–0 scoreline. This meant that Nepal would face a difficult rematch against India in the finals, although any result would ensure a medal at the very least for the Chelis. Despite finally ending the scoring drought against India, the game was lost 1–3. Despite putting on a valiant performance, the Chelis returned home with a silver medal which came to the delight of many supporters of Nepali football due to the rarity of the occasion.

Regeneration

The regeneration of women's football in Nepal was first realised when after the national leagues were reinstated in 2009. The women's national team prior to this hadn't played an international game for 5 years. Nevertheless, the Chelis began training for two upcoming major international tournaments in the following year. In 2010, Nepali women footballers returned with two runner-up trophies, one from the 11th South Asian Games, and the other from the SAFF Women's Football Championship. Despite limited training, resources and less attention compared to the men's team, the women's team performed exceedingly well. In the South Asian Games, they defeated Sri Lanka 8–0, and in SAFF they thrashed Afghanistan 13–0 and Pakistan 11–0. Striker Anu Lama was the star of SAFF, scoring three hat-tricks to be declared the best player of the tournament. However, the team was defeated 0–5 by India in the SAG final, but it was a much more closely fought match when they lost 0–1 to the same team in the SAFF final recently.

Following the team's 2010 regeneration, the women's side's FIFA ranking rose by 22 places.[5]

Team image

Nicknames

The Nepal women's national football team has also been known as the "Nepali Chelis".

Home stadium

Main article: Dasarath Rangasala Stadium
The Dasharath Rangasala at daytime in 2008

The team's home stadium is the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in central Kathmandu. It is shared with the Nepal men's national football team. Holding 25,000 spectators, of which 5,000 seated, the Dasarath Rangasala is the biggest stadium in Nepal. It is named after Dashrath Chand, one of Nepal's martyrs. Prior to the 2013 SAFF Championship in Nepal, the Dasarath Rangasala underwent heavy renovation that saw several improvements such as the expansion of seats from 20,000 to 25,000.

Results and fixtures

Main article: Nepal women's national football team results
See also: 2021 in association football, 2021 in sports, and FIFA International Match Calendar

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.

Legend

  Win   Draw   Lose   Fixture

2023

5 April 2023 2024 AFC Olympic Qualifiers–Round 1 Nepal    1–5  Vietnam Kathmandu, Nepal
18:00 UTC+5:45
  • Bhandari 80'
 Report
Stadium: Dasarath Stadium
Attendance: 2,715
Referee: Sunita Thongthawin (Thailand)
8 April 2023 (2023-04-08) 2024 AFC Olympic Qualifiers Round 1 Vietnam  2–0  Nepal Kathmandu, Nepal
18:00 UTC+5:45 Phạm Hải Yến 4', 7' Report Stadium: Dasarath Stadium
Referee: Oh Hyeon Jeong (South Korea)
13 July 2023 Friendly Bangladesh  1–1  Nepal Dhaka, Bangladesh
00:00 BST (UTC+6) Stadium: Bir Sherestha Shaheed Shipahi Mostafa Kamal Stadium
16 July 2023 Friendly Bangladesh  0–0
(2–4 p)		  Nepal Dhaka, Bangladesh
00:00 BST (UTC+6) Stadium: Bir Sherestha Shaheed Shipahi Mostafa Kamal Stadium
25 September 2022 Asian Games GS Japan  8–0  Nepal Wenzhou, China
--:-- UTC+8 Stadium: Wenzhou Olympic Stadium
28 September 2022 Asian Games GS Bangladesh  1–1  Nepal Wenzhou, China
--:-- UTC+8 Stadium: Wenzhou Olympic Stadium

2024

20 February 2024 2024 WAFF Women's Championship Nepal    4–1  Syria Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
17:00 UTC+3
Report
Stadium: King Abdullah Sports City Reserve Stadium
Referee: Doumouh Al Bakkar (Lebanon)
22 February 2024 2024 WAFF Women's Championship Iraq  0–5  Nepal Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
17:00 UTC+3 Report Bhandari 14', 15', 36', 43', 79' Stadium: King Abdullah Sports City Reserve Stadium
Referee: Haneen Murad (Jordan)
24 February 2024 2024 WAFF Women's Championship Palestine  0–4  Nepal Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
20:00 UTC+3 Report
Stadium: King Abdullah Sports City Reserve Stadium
Referee: Ahmed Saad (Bahrain)
27 February 2024 2024 WAFF Championship SF Nepal    2–1  Lebanon Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
20:00 UTC+3
Report
Stadium: Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City
Referee: Ahmed Saad (Bahrain)
29 February 2024 2024 WAFF Women's Championship F Jordan  2–2
(5–3 p)		  Nepal Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
19:00 UTC+3
Report
Stadium: Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City
Referee: Mohamed Juma (Bahrain)
Penalties

All-time results

As of 19 September 2022
counted for the FIFA A-level matches only.

  Positive Record   Neutral Record   Negative Record

More information Nations, First played ...

Coaching staff and team officials

As of March 2024

Head coach Nepal Rajendra Tamang
Assistant coach TBC
Goalkeeping coach TBC
Team Manager TBC
Team physio TBC
Technical official TBC

Players

Current squad

An initial 31-player preliminary squad was named on 3 February 2024.[6] The final 23-player squad was announced on 12 February 2024.

More information No., Pos. ...

Recent call-ups

The following footballers were part of a national selection in the past twelve months, but are not part of the current squad.
More information Pos., Player ...

Notable players

Honours

Regional

Competitive record

*Draws include knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.
***Red border colour indicates tournament was held on home soil.

FIFA Women's World Cup

More information FIFA Women's World Cup record, Year ...

AFC Women's Asian Cup

More information AFC Women's Asian Cup record, Year ...

SAFF Women's Championship

More information SAFF Women's Championship, Year ...

South Asian Games

More information South Asian Games record, Year ...

WAFF Women's Championship

More information WAFF Women's Championship, Year ...

Other tournaments

More information Host/Year/Tournament Name, Result ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "The FIFA/Coca-Cola Women's World Ranking". FIFA. 15 March 2024. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  2. [2]
    "NFH – Archived News". Angelfire. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  3. [3]
    "Off-side: In support of the Nepali women footballers". The Kathmandu Post. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  4. [4]
    Richardson, Andy (5 March 2009). "Nepali football – Sportsworld". Al-Jazeera Sportsworld. Retrieved 4 January 2016 – via YouTube.
  5. [5]
    "FIFA Rankings Nepal Women's National Team". Archived from the original on July 9, 2007. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  6. [6]
    "National women's team squad down to 31". the-anfa.com. All-Nepal Football Association. 3 February 2024. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  7. [7]
    "South Asian Federation Games (Women's Tournament)". RSSSF. 18 February 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
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