For sure, the most important reason behind the defeat is low standards of Nepali football. The football authority of the nation, All Nepal Football Association (ANFA), must take the responsibility for the humiliating defeat.[break]
If we look back at Nepal’s performances in the international arena in the last decade, we find that we have not progressed at all. Rather, we are going down.
Nepal had lost 9-1 to Iraq about a decade earlier and faced similar defeat of 9-0 against Jordan on Saturday. It reflects Nepal’s unchanged quality and puts a serious question-mark against ANFA and its President Ganesh Thapa, who has been claiming to have been working for the development of football in the country. Thapa has been leading ANFA for a decade and a half.
Nepali team always lacks match practices before playing crucial tournaments or matches. For instance, Nepal did not play a single match before taking on mighty Jordan while the latter played four friendlies within two weeks before the event.
Even if Nepal plays friendly matches, they are only against minnows like Bhutan or some club. ANFA never thinks of friendly matches against teams with higher level of professional ability. Friendlies are not played even with strong opponents from the South Asian regions and Bhutan is always preferred. India and Maldives have leapfrogged in quality within the last decade.
Had Nepal played friendlies with a team of Jordan’s standard ahead of the World Cup Qualifying clash, Nepal would have known weakness of the team earlier and corrected them in the match against Jordan. It could not have changed the defeat but obviously would have changed the margin of defeat.
Though age group tournaments have sometimes brought some hope for improvement in Nepal’s football, the same players in senior level have failed to give continuity to similar performance.
For instance, Nepal had defeated Jordan 3-1 in the AFC U-16 Championship in 2007. In the same year, Nepal lost 2-0 in U-19 Championship while in same age group in 2009 Nepal lost 3-2. On all occasions, Jordan was the opponent. But the same level of result and performance became a far-fetched dream for Nepal at the senior level.
Among 20 players of the current squad, nine were the players of the above mentioned age group teams, namely Rohit Chand, Shiva Shrestha, Biraj Maharjan, Bikash Singh Chhetri, Rabin Shrestha, Anil Ojha, Bharat Khawas, Sujal Shrestha and Jagjeet Shrestah and all of them are products of ANFA Academy.
But as soon as they graduated to the senior level football, they lost the glory of age group. This could be because either the age group players were not mature enough to be released from the Academy or ANFA could not coordinate them well at the senior level.
Rather than bringing program for increasing players’ efficiency (especially at the senior level), ANFA is always interested to pursue a populist agenda.
Similarly, unscientific structure of domestic football has affected its development. There is no fixed number of A division clubs. The last decade has seen the number of A division clubs rising from 10 to 18. The pressure of managing domestic league sometimes even affects the national team. ANFA, which was under pressure by clubs to complete the A division league before the clash with Jordan could not convince clubs and called the national team for a closed camp training for four days.
Clubs are considered the mainstay for the development of football in the country. Most of them do not mind spending huge amount of money to hire players but they do not show interest in running academies and producing good players.
Players and coach could be blamed for the pathetic performance against Jordan. It was also the failure of over-confident coach Graham Roberts and his tactics and techniques.
However, the improvement in quality can’t be made overnight. For this, ANFA must come up with long term plans and implement them seriously. Saturday’s defeat was not only the defeat of the team but alos of ANFA. If ANFA and its long serving president don’t have any plans to raise the quality of football, they do not have the right to play with the sentiments of football lovers in the country. Better, they give way to enthusiastic youth with vision.
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