Nepal’s U14 girls’ team won the Asian Football Confederation U14 South and Central regional tournament winning all their five matches handsomely to be crowned champions.
In the deciding match they defeated three times and defending champions India convincingly with a scoreline of 4-0. Nepal improving match after match played a well combined attacking football which gave them the much desired victory. For the winners Bhawana Mukhiya, Alisa Jimba, Rekha Poudel and Mithila Kumari scored goals. Nepal had an outstanding tournament in defense where they kept a clean sheet in all their five matches.
Nepal’s Alisa Jimba was named the most valuable player while Iran’s Fatemeh Ghasemi was the top goal scorer with 9 goals. Iran who were placed 3rd in the tournament also won the Fair Play team award.
The South Central Regional Championship included 6 teams including Iran, Tajikistan, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, where the host nation Sri Lanka were placed 5th. Sri Lanka had a mixed tournament in which they were thrashed 7-1 by India in the tournament opener but went down fighting in their second match to eventual champions Nepal 1-0. The Sri Lankans kicked off the game with aggressive attacking play and had many goal scoring attempt which was foiled by the solid Nepalese defense. The turning point of the match was when Sri Lanka fluffed a penalty shot which tilted the match in Nepal’s favour and they scored the winner through Rekha Poudel on the hour mark.
In the match against Iran, the visitors fought back from behind to draw the match 2-2. Sri Lanka were leading 2-1 till final 15 minutes but had to be satisfied with a draw. Dulashi Dias the Sri Lankan captain and main striker and attacking mid fielder W.K. Imeshi scored for Sri Lanka.
After dominating the match in possession against Tajikistan the unlucky Sri Lankans who missed a few chances lost 1-0. In their final match the U14 girls defeated Bhutan 3-0 in convincing fashion.
