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Nepal women's national football team
Women's national association football team representing Nepal From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Nepal women's national football team is controlled by the All Nepal Football Association and represents Nepal in international women's football competitions. The Women's Football Department has been developed to control and manage the women's football activities. The official motto of women's football in Nepal is "Football for Change". It is a member of the Asian Football Confederation and the South Asian Football Federation and has yet to qualify for the World Cup.
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History
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Formation
Nepal formed a women's national team in the mid-1980s and debuted in the 1986 AFC Women's Championship. During the start of the tournament, Nepal played their first official match against Hong Kong (14 December 1986), which they lost with a score of 1–0. Nepal women's side also participated in the final three phases of the Asian Cup in 1986, 1989 and 1999, never going beyond the group stages. Nepal proved to be in a difficult group with former champions Thailand, alongside Indonesia and Hong Kong, two relatively strong teams. As a result, Nepal had lost all three matches, two of them jarringly, while the match against Hong Kong proved to be a steady profit. In 1989 Nepal played again in the championship, against the same opponents, except that Thailand was substituted against Japan. This resulted in meagre points for Nepal, who lost every game by a wide margin, the smallest 0–3 against Hong Kong.
Nepal's FIFA First Vice President was Kamal Thapa. Nepal's first woman captain was Rama Singh. When the Nepali women's football team was created, Kamal Thapa was the president of the All Nepal Football Association. Singh, who represented the Bagmati team, started playing in 1985. The national team's second captain was Kamala Hirachan who also represented the Gandaki team and the third women captain was Meera Chaudhary who represented Naryani team. Singh later became the first newsreader in Nepali television history, and Chaudhary has held a rank of DSP in Nepal police. The first female international goal scorer of Nepal is Pema Dolma Lama, who scored a goal against Uzbekistan at the 1999 AFC Women's Championship held in Philippines.
Crisis years
As a result of the democracy uprising in 1990, there was an eight-year period without a women's national team. This negatively affected player recruitment, but nevertheless Nepal soon returned to international football during the Women's Asian Cup in 1999. Despite their return, the results were about the same as before the eight-year hiatus. The championship ended in the group-stage with Japan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and the Philippines, where Nepal lost all four games. Since then, Nepal has not appeared in the Women's Asian cup. Former men's national team technical director, Holger Obermann served as the technical advisor for the Chelis during their 1999 campaign.[2]
However, this did not mean that Nepal had not played football since 1999. The Mangladevi League, roughly a month-long women's football tourney, was set up trying to bring in women football players across the country. It was played in early 2000, in a league-cum-knockout basis. It was an initiative taken by a single person, but sadly discontinued after a year.[3]
Nepal had a long period without matches, but they impressed many in the South Asian Games in 2010, where they reached the final after beating several opponents by a wide margin. In the finals they lost narrowly 1–3 against the big favorite India. This gave the national team a much needed recognition. The 11th South Asian Games also were the first to host a women's football event as well.[4] In the opening match of the 2010 South Asian Games, Nepal women's U23 faced hosts Bangladesh, where they won with a single goal. The second match against Sri Lanka proved to be more illustrious as victory came in the form of 8 goals while holding a clean sheet. However, the scoring spree was short lived as the third group-stage match against India saw a heavy 0–5 loss. Nevertheless, Nepal had done enough to qualify for the second round (semi finals) against Pakistan which they won with a resounding 7–0 scoreline. This meant that Nepal would face a difficult rematch against India in the finals, although any result would ensure a medal at the very least for the Chelis. Despite finally ending the scoring drought against India, the game was lost 1–3. Despite putting on a valiant performance, the Chelis returned home with a silver medal which came to the delight of many supporters of Nepali football due to the rarity of the occasion.
Regeneration
The regeneration of women's football in Nepal was first realised when after the national leagues were reinstated in 2009. The women's national team prior to this hadn't played an international game for 5 years. Nevertheless, the Chelis began training for two upcoming major international tournaments in the following year. In 2010, Nepali women footballers returned with two runner-up trophies, one from the 11th South Asian Games, and the other from the SAFF Women's Football Championship. Despite limited training, resources and less attention compared to the men's team, the women's team performed exceedingly well. In the South Asian Games, they defeated Sri Lanka 8–0, and in SAFF they thrashed Afghanistan 13–0 and Pakistan 11–0. Striker Anu Lama was the star of SAFF, scoring three hat-tricks to be declared the best player of the tournament. However, the team was defeated 0–5 by India in the SAG final, but it was a much more closely fought match when they lost 0–1 to the same team in the SAFF final recently.
Following the team's 2010 regeneration, the women's side's FIFA ranking rose by 22 places.[5]
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Team image
Nicknames
The Nepal women's national football team has also been known as the "Nepali Chelis".
Home stadium
The team's home stadium is the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in central Kathmandu. It is shared with the Nepal men's national football team. Holding 25,000 spectators, of which 5,000 seated, the Dasarath Rangasala is the biggest stadium in Nepal. It is named after Dashrath Chand, one of Nepal's martyrs. Prior to the 2013 SAFF Championship in Nepal, the Dasarath Rangasala underwent heavy renovation that saw several improvements such as the expansion of seats from 20,000 to 25,000.[6]
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FIFA World Ranking
- As of 13 December 2024[7]
Results and fixtures
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The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.
- Legend
Win Draw Lose Fixture
2025
| 17 February 2025 Vianet Championship GS | Nepal  | 1–0 |  Kyrgyzstan | Kathmandu, Nepal |
| 17:30 UTC+5:45 | Bimala Chaudhary  9' |
Report | Stadium: Dasharath Rangasala Attendance: 11,516 Referee: Kanika Barman (India) Player of the Match: Preeti Rai |
| 20 February 2025 Vianet Championship GS | Lebanon  | 0–1 | Nepal | Kathmandu, Nepal |
| 17:30 UTC+5:45 | Report | Bhandari 42' |
Stadium: Dasharath Rangasala Attendance: 11,473 Referee: Tekcham Ranjita Devi (India) |
| 23 February 2025 Vianet Championship GS | Nepal | 2–2 |  Myanmar | Kathmandu, Nepal |
| 17:30 UTC+5:45 |
|
Report |
|
Stadium: Dasharath Rangasala Attendance: 12,605 Player of the Match: Sabitra Bhandari |
| 26 February 2025 Vianet Championship final | Myanmar | 2–0 | Nepal | Kathmandu, Nepal |
| 17:30 UTC+5:45 | Yu Par Khaing 61' Win Theingi Tun 63' |
Report | Stadium: Dasharath Rangasala Attendance: 19,580 |
| 29 June 2025 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualification | Laos  | v | Nepal | |
| UTC+5 |
| 2 July 2025 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualification | Nepal | v |  Sri Lanka | |
| UTC+5 |
| 5 July 2025 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualification | Nepal | v |  Uzbekistan | |
| UTC+5 |
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Coaching staff
As of 27 February 2024
Manager history
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Players
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Current squad
The following 23 players were called up for a Vianet Women's Championship in Nepal between 17 and 26 February 2025.[12]
Recent call-ups
- The following footballers were part of a national selection in the past twelve months, but are not part of the current squad.
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Records
Honours
Regional
Competitive record
FIFA Women's World Cup
Olympic Games
AFC Women's Asian Cup
Asian Games
SAFF Women's Championship
South Asian Games
WAFF Women's Championship
Other tournaments
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Head-to-head record
- As of 27 February 2025, after the match against
Myanmar.
| More wins | |
| Equal wins/losses ratio | |
| More losses |
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See also
References
External links
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