Nepal defeat pushes U-15s to the brink
Holders Bangladesh’s bid of defending the title of the SAFF U-15 Championship suffered a heavy blow when they suffered a massive 4-1 defeat against Nepal in their third match at the Kalyani Stadium in West Bengal yesterday.
Following convincing wins against Bhutan and Sri Lanka, the boys in red and green put in a below-par performance against Nepal, who have always proved a bogey side for Bangladesh since the introduction of the event in 2011. Bangladesh only managed to beat Nepal once [in the last edition] while drawing once [inaugural edition] and losing twice in the semifinals of the 2013 and 2017 editions.
The defeat means Bangladesh and Nepal are now equal on six points from three matches each while India, following a 5-0 win over Bhutan yesterday, topped the round-robin group with maximum nine points. But none of the three teams are yet confirmed of a final berth as Bangladesh and Nepal still have the possibility to catch India, subject to victories wins over India and Bhutan respectively in the final group matches tomorrow.
However, Bangladesh’s chances of making it to the final look very slim as they must beat India by a big margin to take an edge in head-to-head/goal-difference/goals-scored count if more than two teams finish on top with equal points.
Bangladesh, though, will go through with a draw against India if Nepal lose against minnows Bhutan in their last match.
The boys in red and green were poor throughout yesterday’s match, being unable to either expose the Nepal defence or keep possession of the ball while the defenders failed to stop the Nepalese forwards and Sabbir Gazi was poor between the sticks.
Nepal took the lead from a counter-attack in stoppage time of the first half, with substitute Krishna Adhikari Yadav, availing a long-ball, racing past two defenders to easily beat Gazi before captain Pradip Lamsal’s shot was tipped into the net by Gazi in the 52nd minute.
Bangladesh hit back through a 79th-minute strike from substitute Badsha Mia, raising hopes of a comeback, but Nepal scored two more goals in span of five minutes with Pradip beating Gazi from a long-range effort in the 83rd minute and Yadav tapping home a rebound in the 87th minute.
“We could not avail the chances we created early in the game while mistakes from the goalkeeper and defenders forced us on the backfoot. We came back in the match at one stage pulling a goal back, but again we missed scoring chances and lost the match,” said coach Mostafa Anwar Parvez, who had guided Bangladesh to the title in the last edition.
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