Nepal women's national football team

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Nepal
नेपाल राष्ट्रिय महिला फुटबल टिम

Nickname(s)	Nepali Chelis
Association	All Nepal Football Association
Confederation	AFC (Asia)
Sub-confederation	SAFF (South Asia)
Head coach	Gary Phillips
Captain	Niru Thapa[1]
Most caps	Niru Thapa (41)
Top scorer	Sabitra Bhandari (38)
Home stadium	Various
FIFA code	NEP
First colours Second colours
FIFA ranking
Current	101 1 (20 August 2021)[2]
Highest	92 (December 2009)
Lowest	128 (August 2012)
First international
Nepal 0–1 Hong Kong  (Hong Kong; 14 December 1986)
Biggest win
Nepal 13–0 Afghanistan  (Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh; 14 December 2010)
Biggest defeat
Japan 14–0 Nepal    (Hong Kong; 24 December 1989)  Japan 14–0 Nepal (Barotac Nuevo, Philippines; 12 November 1999)
Women's Asian Cup
Appearances	3 (first in 1986)
Best result	Group stage

The Nepal women's national football team, otherwise known as Nepali Cheli's (Nepali Daughters)^{[citation needed]} is controlled by the All Nepal Football Association and represents Nepal in women's international football competitions. The Women's Football Department is 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.

History[]

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Formation[]

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 who also represented the Gandaki team and the third women captain was 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 , 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.^[3]

However, this did not mean that Nepal had not played football since 1999. The , 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.^[4]

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.^[5] 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 had performed exceedingly well internationally. 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 regeneration since 2010, the women's side rose 22 places in the FIFA ranking.^[6]

Team image[]

Nicknames[]

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

Home stadium[]

The team's home ground are various around the nation also shared with the Nepal national football team at the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in central Kathmandu, Nepal. Holding 25,000 spectators, of which 5,000 seated, it is the biggest stadium in Nepal. It is named after Dashrath Chand, one of the martyrs of Nepal. 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[]

• 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

2021[]

All-time results[]

As of 9 December 2019

counted for the FIFA A-level matches only.

Nations	First played	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
Afghanistan	2010	2	2	0	0	20	1	+19
Bangladesh	2010	6	5	1	0	12	1	+11
Bhutan	2014	3	3	0	0	19	0	+19
Hong Kong	1986	2	0	0	2	0	4	–4
India	2010	14	1	2	11	8	36	–28
Indonesia	1986	3	1	0	2	2	15	–13
Iran	2019	1	1	0	0	3	0	+3
Japan	1989	2	0	0	2	0	28	–28
Kuwait	2013	1	1	0	0	8	0	+8
Kyrgyzstan	2019	1	1	0	0	8	2	+6
Malaysia	2016	3	1	0	2	3	5	–2
Maldives	2010	5	5	0	0	25	0	+25
Myanmar	2018	4	0	1	3	3	10	–7
Pakistan	2010	4	4	0	0	29	0	+29
Philippines	1999	1	0	0	1	0	5	–5
Qatar	2013	2	2	0	0	9	0	+9
Sri Lanka	2010	7	7	0	0	24	0	+24
Tajikistan	2019	1	1	0	0	1	0	+1
Thailand	1986	2	0	0	2	0	10	–10
Uzbekistan	1999	3	0	0	3	3	11	–8
Total	1986	67	35	4	28	177	128	+49

Coaching staff and team officials[]

As of February 2021

Head Coach	Gary Phillips
Manager
Assistant coach
Goalkeeping coach
Team physio
Technical official

Players[]

Current squad[]

• The following players were named on for the 2020 AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament (Second round) on 3 April 2019.^[7]

No.	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club
16	1GK	Anjila Tumbapo Subba	(1996-05-28) 28 May 1996 (age 25)	20	0	APF Club
20	1GK		(2002-01-17) 17 January 2002 (age 19)	4	0	Nepal Army Club
22	1GK		(2001-02-02) 2 February 2001 (age 20)	0	0	Nepal Police Club
15	2DF		(1992-02-19) 19 February 1992 (age 29)	28	0	APF Club
3	2DF		(1993-06-27) 27 June 1993 (age 28)	26	1	Nepal Army Club
6	2DF		(1995-12-26) 26 December 1995 (age 25)	25	1	APF Club
12	2DF	Gita Rana	(1996-09-21) 21 September 1996 (age 24)	21	0	APF Club
5	2DF		age= (1994-10-15) 15 October 1994 (age 26)	19	0	Nepal Police Club
2	2DF		age= (1990-02-12) 12 February 1990 (age 31)	2	0	Nepal Army Club
23	2DF		(2001-03-28) 28 March 2001 (age 20)	1	0	Nepal Army Club
19	3MF		(1990-05-03) 3 May 1990 (age 31)	27	0	Nepal Army Club
7	3MF		(1995-04-16) 16 April 1995 (age 26)	27	0	APF Club
11	3MF	Anita Basnet	(1994-12-27) 27 December 1994 (age 26)	26	2	Sethu FC
18	3MF		(2001-05-10) 10 May 2001 (age 20)	21	4	APF Club
27	3MF		(2001-03-04) 4 March 2001 (age 20)	16	0	APF Club
25	3MF		(1997-06-25) 25 June 1997 (age 24)	9	0	APF Club
21	3MF	Sharmila Thapa	(1993-03-18) 18 March 1993 (age 28)	8	2	APF Club
14	4FW	Niru Thapa (captain)	(1990-08-30) 30 August 1990 (age 31)	41	13	Nepal Police Club
9	4FW	Sabitra Bhandari	(1996-05-23) 23 May 1996 (age 25)	34	38	Gokulam Kerala FC
8	4FW		(2002-01-09) 9 January 2002 (age 19)	5	1	APF Club

|- class="nat-fs-player" | 2 |4FW ! scope="row" | |style="text-align:left"| (2002-01-09) 9 January 2002 (age 19) | 2 | 1 |style="text-align:left"| APF Club |}

Notable players[]

• Rama Singh
• Anu Lama
• Jamuna Gurung
• Sajana Rana
• Sabitra Bhandari
• Lila Lamgade

-Best goalkeeper of the Year 2013, 2014 and 2015

Honours[]

Regional[]

• SAFF Women's Championship

Runners-up: 2010, 2012, 2014, 2019

• South Asian Games

Runners-up: 2010, 2016, 2019

Other tournaments[]

• Nadezhda Cup

Runners-up: 2019

• Women's Gold Cup

Runners-up: 2019

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[]

FIFA Women's World Cup record
Year	Result	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1991	Did not enter
1995
1999
2003	Withdrew
2007	Did not enter
2011
2015
2019
2023	TBD
Total	0/8	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

AFC Women's Asian Cup[]

AFC Women's Asian Cup record
Year	Result	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1975	Did not enter (No team)
1977
1979
1981
1983
1986	Round 1	3	0	0	3	0	12	–12	0
1989	Round 1	3	0	0	3	0	25	–25	0
1991	Did not enter
1993
1995
1997
1999	Round 1	4	0	0	4	1	30	–29	0
2001	Did not enter
2003
2006
2008
2010
2014
2018
2022	TBD
Total	3/20	10	0	0	10	1	67	–66	0

SAFF Women's Championship[]

SAFF Women's Championship record
Year	Result	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
2010	Runners-up	5	4	0	1	34	1	+33	12
2012	Runners-up	5	4	0	1	24	4	+20	12
2014	Runners-up	5	4	0	1	17	6	+11	12
2016	Semi-final	4	3	0	1	19	3	+16	9
2019	Runners-up	3	2	0	1	7	3	+4	6
	TBD
Total	5/5	22	17	0	5	101	17	+84	51

South Asian Games[]

South Asian Games record[8]
Year	Result	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
2010	Silver	5	3	0	2	17	9	+8	9
2016	Silver	5	3	1	1	9	4	+5	10
2019	Silver	4	2	0	2	4	3	+1	6
	TBD
Total	3/3	14	8	1	5	30	16	+14	25

Other tournaments[]

Host/Year/Tournament Name	Result	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD
2019 Women's Gold Cup	Runners-up	4	2	0	2	6	7	–1
2019 Nadezhda Cup	Runners-up	4	2	0	2	11	7	+4

See also[]

• Sport in Nepal
  • Football in Nepal
• All Nepal Football Association
• Nepal women's national under-23 football team
• Nepal women's national under-20 football team
• Nepal women's national under-17 football team
• Nepal national football team
• Nepal national under-20 football team
• Nepal national under-17 football team
• Nepal at the Asian Games

References[]

External links[]

• Official website, the-ANFA.com (in English)