Girls eye another SAFF triumph

The country's football anticipates another trophy in its cabinet as Bangladesh take on Nepal in the final of the SAFF U-20 Women's Championship at the Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Kamalapur today.

The match will get underway at 6:00pm, local time.

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Bangladesh stormed into the final of the ongoing tournament for the fourth time as the regional age-group championship was held thrice in two formats: U-18 twice and U-19 once. Bangladesh emerged champions in the U-18 and the U-19 format in 2018 and 2021, respectively, before finishing runners-up behind India in U-18 round-robin format championship in 2022.

Despite the absence of a golden generation of footballers, the budding players showed their potential on their road to the final by beating Nepal 3-1, playing out a goalless draw against India before thumping Bhutan 5-0.

Bangladesh are looking forward to transforming their group-stage performance into the final. However, Shamsunnahar Junior and Co may face a stiff challenge from the Himalayan girls who stunned pre-tournament favourites India with a come-from-behind 3-1 win to ensure a final berth.

"I think the final is going to be very competitive and a fighting one, which I believe the spectators will enjoy," said Bangladesh coach Golam Rabbani Choton during a pre-match conference at the BFF House yesterday. 

Although Choton reckons the final would be tough for them, he also did not forget to mention that Bangladesh never lost to Nepal in the previous six meetings at this stage, having beaten them five times – twice in both 2018 and 2022 editions and once in the 2023 edition -- and drew once in the 2021 edition.

"Our target was to make sure of the final which we have already achieved but our job is still unfinished because we want to become champions by repeating the performance we put in our previous group-stage matches," said captain Shamsunnar, who slammed a hat-trick against Bhutan in the final round-robin fixture.

Choton will certainly bank on the forward trio – Shamsunnahar, Aklima Khatun and Shaheda Akter Ripa – to capitalise on early opportunities, and also hope to not squander clear-cut chances like how they did against Bhutan.

"Look, the girls availed all three opportunities against Nepal in our first match but they could take only five chances home out of numerous opportunities against Bhutan. We have worked on this area in training and hope the forwards will be more clinical tomorrow [Thursday]," said Choton adding that they would devise their game strategy against Nepal accordingly, having already studied all three matches of Nepal.

Nepal coach Yam Prasad Gurung is eager to taste their maiden trophy, especially after putting up a resurgent performance against India.

"Bangladesh are ahead of us in terms of performance, home ground and crowd, but we know the weak and strong points of Bangladesh, which are our advantage. It is a different match and we will play in different ways," said Gurung.

Nepal captain Preeti Kulung Rai, however, said, "This time we will be trying to take the trophy home because we deserve to win over Bangladesh,"