Many top political leaders were present at Dashrath Stadium to watch Nepal´s opening match in AFC Challenge Cup against Palestine last Thursday. In the event, Nepal went down 2-0. The leaders, including the prime minister, ever in tune with the public pulse, lauded Nepal’s valiant effort while bemoaning the squad’s tough luck in not scoring on the day. A couple of days later, Speaker Subas Chandra Nembang, well and truly caught up in the football fever, urged Maoist leader Puspa Kamal Dahal to play the role of Barcelona star forward Lionel Messi, suggesting that only Dahal could score the goals needed to see the constitution agenda through.
This rather forced coupling of politics and football aside, on Saturday, Nepal lost again (1-0), this time to the Maldives, sending the home team crashing out of the tournament, the biggest in its history. That wasn’t the end of Nepal’s miseries though. In its next match Nepal was defeated, yet again, by Turkmenistan, who hammered the dispirited Nepali team 3-0 in a one-sided contest. Three matches without a goal, the tournament was a damning evidence of Nepal´s lack of firepower up front. But it now appears the Nepali squad’s behind-the-scene problems could have played an equally big part in the team’s dismal showing.
During the second match against the Maldives, Nepal substituted one of its mid-fielder Raju Tamang with striker Santosh Sahukhala. Astonishingly, it emerged that the substitution was against coach Graham Roberts’ wishes and carried under orders of no less an authority than All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) President Ganesh Thapa. It is surprising because in international practice the coach makes all the crucial team decisions once the match starts.
If Thapa had indeed intervened, it sets a dangerous precedent for Nepali football. If the ANFA president can decide on substitutes over phone, why do we need coaches on the field? Another disheartening story was to emerge in the wake of Nepal’s third loss of the tournament against Turkmenistan. On the eve of the match, Nepal Army, under the cover of the night, took away two of its players in the national squad, again without the approval of the coach.
This series of rather forgettable events make two things absolutely clear. First, football in Nepal is subject to the same ad hocism that mars the country´s other vital sectors, where the arbitrary authority of a handful often prevails over the general interest. Two, Nepali football is desperately short of quality strikers, which was also amply evident during the SAFF Championship in India last year. Part of the second problem, we believe, is lack of quality in domestic football. While a normal regular season spans nine months, Nepal’s national tournament is played out over a meager month: the players, especially the forwards, were clearly missing match practice.
Coming back to Roberts, yes, he might have been hard done this time around, but the irascible former Tottenham defender didn’t exactly emerge with flying colors either: his tenure with Nepal was decidedly mixed; and he won himself no favor whatsoever by lashing out against the journalists inquiring about Nepal’s poor performance. Even on the field, Roberts seemed to lose his cool time and again. Rather predictably, a disconsolate Roberts resigned after the Turkmenistan loss.
Speaker Nembang wanted Dahal to emulate Messi´s heroics with Barcelona. He could as well have suggested that Nepal could do with a few Messis on the field of play. But before that the country will now have to find its Pep Guardiola.
Related story
_20240311121839.jpg)
