KATHMANDU, Oct 2: Nepal national football team is set to kick-off their campaign of defending the Bangabandhu Cup title against Tajikistan at Sylhet District Stadium, Sylhet, Bangladesh on Tuesday. 

Nepal’s participation in the fifth edition of Bangabandhu Cup has not been any short of a drama. All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) had previously announced not to participate in the tournament if the pending winning amount of Rs 250,000 from last edition was not paid before the new edition. Nepal had won the last edition defeating Bahrain U-23 in the final. Co-incidentally, Bal Gopal Maharjan will be back again as the coach in the fifth edition too starting Tuesday.

However, the federation sent the remaining amount last week as the participation got the green light. Nepal will be entering the tournament with only a week of practice marred by opening matches of Nepal’s football league ‘A’-Division.

“We didn’t have best of times to prepare for the tournament. But we are here anyway and will give our best to force a result in our side,” said Maharjan on the eve of the match. He said that Tajikistan is a better team in terms of physical and tactical aspects of the game but “there are examples like as recent as FIFA World Cup 2018 where South Korea defeated Germany.”

Nepal had a mixed few months recently in international football. The national team lost all the matches in Asian Games held at Indonesia in August before reaching semi-final in SAFF Championships losing to eventual champions Maldives last month. 

Nepal will miss the services of mercurial midfielder Rohit Chand and Kiran Chemjong. Chand has been involved with his Indonesian club whereas Chemjong is in Maldives.  Both will miss the tournament after necessary paper-works were not done in time to get the official leave from the respective clubs. Coach Maharjan said the replacements Tej Tamang and Bishal Shrestha are capable players to represent Nepal at this level. 

Six nations will compete in the 2018 edition of the Bangabandhu Cup. Bangladesh Football Federation president Kazi Salahuddin previously stated to get one team from each of the Asian Football Confederation’s sub-confederations. Afghanistan was also reported as a potential participant but did not come to fruition. All the participating teams are the ‘A’ national teams except for the Philippines which brought their second team. Laos, Palestine and host team Bangladesh are other teams in the tournament. Nepal will play Palestine on October 6 in Group A fixtures. The top two teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals.

Matches will be played in three different venues. The Sylhet District Stadium in Sylhet will host group stage matches while the Cox’s Bazar Stadium in Cox’s Bazar will host the semifinals. The Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka will be the venue for the final match.

The Bangabandhu Cup was an international association football tournament organized by the Bangladesh Football Federation as a tribute to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It was launched in 1996.
 

 
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