SAFF Championship 2013: Afghanistan progress to the final but Nepal football's the real winner

It was supposed to be a fairytale ending for Nepal but in the end it wasn’t to be. Nepal created the better chances, played the better football but in the end fell short as they lost 1-0 in their SAFF Championship 2013 semi-final against Afghanistan.

From a technical point of view, there was a bit of naivety from Nepal as they kept playing crosses into the box, although clearly the physically superior Afghanistan side had an advantage in the aerial duels. Surely they should have used the channels to expose a tiring Afghan unit.

Two players who were brilliant in the group stage and were aiming to be the heroes of the tournament made vital errors in the game and will now have a few sleepless nights. The players in question are goalkeeper Kiran Kumar Limbu whose failure to hold a routine cross saw Nepal concede, and then former I-League player Rohit Chand couldn’t keep his nerve when it mattered as he failed to convert from the spot despite having two attempts.

The headlines in Kathmandu and the rest of the Nepal will be of the shortcomings of those two players as it cost the national team possibly their best chance of becoming South Asian champions. But from a neutral point of view, Nepal football are already the real winners of SAFF 2013.

Each of Nepal’s four games in the tournament was witnessed by more than 22,000 at Kathmandu’s Dasharath Stadium. Backed by a capacity crowd, Nepal played well above themselves throughout the tournament, beating higher ranked teams like Bangladesh and India, which would surely improve their FIFA Ranking in the next release, which is scheduled for Thursday.

In the semi-final, they outplayed the highest ranked team in South Asia, Afghanistan and were desperately unlucky not to take the game to extra time at least.

But more than their performances, it was the euphoria among the locals that impressed every travelling journalist, including this writer. Such enthusiasm and buzz is unseen in the sub-continent for their own football team. A common sight on Nepal matchdays would be fans lining up from the morning for tickets while several others would be spending hours on the streets to get their faces painted.

Songs on Nepali football like the famous ‘Aayo Gorkhali’, (‘Here comes the brave Gurkhas’) would enhance the atmosphere inside the ground, and right from the first to the last whistle of every Nepal game, one could hardly hear anything inside the stadium because of the sheer noise made by the passionate locals.

The Nepali fans also did their bit to rattle every opposing team either through banners or provocative chants but they never crossed the line and were instead seen cheering the Afghan players after the final whistle.

The real test for the Nepal national team will now be to bounce back from this disappointing ending as the players were completely devastated after the match. Limbu and Chand, especially, have the toughest mental challenge ahead.

But SAFF 2013 has given Nepal football a great foundation to build on. ‘Aayo Gorkhali’.