SHILLONG, FEB 5: Nepal started their women’s football campaign with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Bangladesh on the opening day of the 12th South Asian Games 2016 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Complex.
Nepal was impressive with their attack and was rewarded as early as in the 3rd minute with Dipa Adhikari finding the back of the nets. Dipa found Bangladesh’s custodian Sabina Akter out of her area to score an easy goal.
The following minutes saw Bangladesh threaten to come back as they maintained possession and tested Nepal’s midfield on a few occasions. But it was Nepal that scored again, this time forward Anu Lama breaking the Bangladeshi defence and scoring from a close range.
Four minutes later, Niru Thapa made it three for Nepal with a comfortable placement following a short pass from within the box. Thapa nearly scored her side’s fourth goal but a valiant save by Sabina Akter denied Nepal a further advantage.
A goalless second half failed to produce any heroics from Bangladesh but they looked a more refreshed side. Skipper Sabina Khatun, who was the lone threat in the initial half, came close to scoring in the 83rd minute but her free kick smashed into the crossbar. In the end, however, Nepal held their nerves to emerge triumphant 3-0.
After the match, Nepal’s coach Dhruba Bahadur said that the game plan was to start off on an attacking mode. “Our plan was to attack and watch out for the counter attacks in the first half. I was worried about this match but we won. Despite this, I’m not completely satisfied with our performance as we did not show our potential.”
The opposition’s coach Golam Robbani Choton admitted that Bangladesh made mistakes when conceding the goals but added that his side was more organised in the second half. “Nepal is a very strong team. We will come up with a good plan for the next game,” he went on to say.-By Our Reporter
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