Nepali colts counting on home comfort
KATHMANDU, JUL 18 -
Nepal are eyeing for the winner’s trophy in the Second SAF U-16 Championship, scheduled to kick off from Saturday in Kathmandu. It is not just for the trophy, coach Bal Gopal Maharjan is expecting his young guns to end the goal scoring jinx Nepalifootball is currently suffering.
“I am expecting my boys to score a lot of goals,” said Maharjan said, who is confident that his boys will thrill the crowd with the ultimate prize.
“My boys have undergone intense training for over three months. They had also provided good challenge to some of the top flight clubs in the practice matches,” Maharjan explained.
The reason behind such huge expectation from the team is the skill they had displayed in the U-14 Festival, held two years ago, and the U-15 South Asian Tournament, organised by Japan a year ago.
Majority of the players in the current team had played in both the championships where they had knocked down heavyweight teams like India and Pakistan.
In addition to these players, Anfa had run a talent hunt programme six months ago to pick put the finest talent from the five development regions.
“Their result in the two age group competitions has boosted the confidence of my team,” Maharjan, who took reign of the team in both the tournament, said.
Maharjan considers defending champion Pakistan being the only team capable of giving a tough fight against the home side. “Around six of their players had played in the inaugural edition which makes them a tough team,” Maharjan explained.
ANFA president Ganesh Thapa too has high hopes from the home team. “We have placed very high hope from this team that has had ample exposure and training,” Thapa said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“We had finished third in the first edition and we are expecting better result this time around.”
Thapa also added that the draw of the championship will be held on Friday. The matches will be held at two venues the Dashrath Stadium and the Army Ground in Lagankhel. Host Nepal will play all their matches at the Dashrath Stadium.
After Maldives pulled out from the championship seven team- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Afghanistan along with host Nepal are competing in the 10-day championship which will be played in round robin format.
According to ANFA the estimated budget for the championship is Rs 70,00,000 out of which SAF will provide $ 50,000 The matches will be held at two venues- Dashrath Stadium and Army’s ground at Lagankhel. Tickets for general and VIC seats have been priced Rs 100 while VIP tickets will cost Rs and 300 respectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment