The Nepal national football team is the national team of Nepal and is governed by the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA). A member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the Nepalese football team play their home games at Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, Tripureswhor, Kathmandu. The ANFA governs the Nepal national football team as well as the National League and other cup competitions. The ANFA, founded in 1951, became affiliated with FIFA in 1970. The current acting president of ANFA is former vice president Lalit Krishna Shrestha (taking over from former president Ganesh Thapa).
The national coach is Jack Stefanowski who was appointed on January 7, 2013.[5]
History
Origins
Football in Nepal had been a national sport as early as 1921 during the Rana dynasty. Several clubs were formed and several domestic tournaments such as the Ram Janaki Cup (1934), and the Tribhuvan Challenge Shield (1948) were organised. In 1951, the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) was founded, and this saw the formation of the Nepal national football team.
Emergence
In 1963, Nepal appeared in their first international away game in the Aga Khan Gold Cup; the predecessor of the President's Gold Cup, Asia Champion Club Tournament, and Asian Club Championship (now rebranded as the AFC Champions League) after various associations (including ANFA) insisted on entering national teams instead of clubs.[6] After Nepal entered an 18-man squad, ANFA flew the players to Dhaka, East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) to play their first match. Nepal faced Western Railway, a Pakistani team in the Bangabandhu National Stadium. However the match was lost 0–7. 2 days later, Nepal played the Dhaka Wonders, a local West Pakistani team. Though this match was also lost 0–7. After a disastrous 2 games, Nepal was sure to be knocked out of the preliminary round. The final game was against Dhaka Police Club, though despite the previous heavy losses, Nepal managed to win the game with a single goal. The goal scorer, Prakash Bikram Shah, became the first Nepali to score on foreign soil.[7] The goal took place at the 19th minute.
Modernisation & golden generation
In 1970, Nepal became a member of FIFA. Two years later, Nepal joined the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). With this, Nepal played their first international match on October 13, 1972, where they lost 2-6 to the People's Republic of China. The first Nepali footballer to score the first international goal for Nepal in a FIFA-recognized tournament was Y.B Ghale. Ghale scored against Kuwait in the 1982 Asian Games. Despite the popularity of the game, the lack of appropriate footballing infrastructure and the dearth of trainers, technicians and other facilities have always been obstacles in the way of the Nepalese FA's endeavours to raise the standard of football among the players of a nation that has an official per capita income of just
The woes of Nepalese football, however, have been immensely relieved by FIFA's determination to promote football in Nepal through youth programmes.
In the mid-1980s, FIFA provided financial assistance and sent a number of coaches to help Nepal launch its first youth programme, which was geared towards spotting talent at the grassroots level (such as in schools, for example) and providing young players with the necessary know-how, both on and off the pitch. The initial five-year plan helped half the players groomed under the first youth programme to find a place in the national side, and the team that won the 2 gold medals in the first and sixth South Asian Federation (SAF) Games mostly consisted of the players from that youth programme. Despite Nepal being considered among the lower ranked nations, Nepal have been largely successful in the South Asian Games where they won two gold, two silver, and two bronze medals.
Nepal played several notable friendlies on home soil during the mid to late 80s, against Denmark in 1986; USSR and East Germany in 1987; and West Germany in 1989.[8]
Recent years
Nepal celebrated their 100th international football match in January 2003 when they played Bangladesh in the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship. Sadly, Nepal failed to make any real impact at the tournament. During its 22 years of international participation, the Nepalese team has only played 26 nations outside of South Asia, but it has defeated all of the country's South Asian neighbours during various regional tournaments.
Despite many attempts to raise the standard of football, the players of the resource-strapped nation have not been able to make their mark in international football beyond South Asia. In 2003 during the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers, Nepal's A national team suffered a number of heavy defeats in international matches outside of South Asia. In a match during the Asian Cup qualifying round in Korea Republic, the hosts scored 16 goals to no reply. In their six matches, Nepal conceded 45 goals and failed to hit the back of the net even once. However, the qualifying competition for the 2002 FIFA World Cup witnessed one of Nepal's best performances in international football, with the Gorkhalis securing two wins in four matches and scoring 13 goals in two matches against Macao and Iraq. But with the Nepalese national and youth teams failing to achieve any noticeable success at international level and FIFA introducing new age restriction systems in several international tournaments, Nepal recently decided to compete only in the FIFA World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers as well as the SAFF Championship.
The team's home ground is the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in Tripureswor, Kathmandu, Nepal. Holding 25,000 spectators all of which are beautifully seated. It is the biggest stadium in Nepal. It is named after Dashrath Chand, one of the martyrs of Nepal.
Apart from sporting events, the stadium is also used as a music venue for cultural events with Bryan Adams being the most notable act that performed at the site.
Before 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.
Kit
Kit evolution
The national team's kit employs a tricolour of red, blue, and white to reflect the colours of the national flag of Nepal. With red being used for home matches, and blue for away. The pattern in some kits reflect the triangular shaping of flag, namely the 2013 kit. Nepal's kits are mostly template kits, as opposed to a custom team-specific kit. This is because the Nepal national team isn't lucrative enough to afford kit partnership deals with manufacturers.
Very little is known about the history prior to 1998. However, during the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, the Nepalese national team hired Bijay Shah to provide technical assistance to the squad, while also acting as the assistant coach. At the time, the team didn't have printed sportswear for the tournament. After printing makeshift kits, Bijay was inspired to start a t-shirt printing company known as Attsh, where through the partnership with a US printing company, and colleagues in South Korea, they produced their first batch of kits for the national team prior to the 1999 South Asian Games.[9] Today, Attsh acts as the main kit distributor for the national team, with adidas being the primary manufacturer of choice.
During the ANFA Cup, the All Nepal Football Association occasionally entered two teams for Nepal; Nepal Red & Nepal Blue. This is very much akin to other South Asian teams such as Pakistan (Pakistan Green & Pakistan White, 1993 SAFF Championship; Pakistan Reds, 1976 Quaid-e-Azam exhibition matches), and Bangladesh (Bangladesh Red, 1983 President's Cup). Nepal Red were a selection of Nepalese players that played as the full Nepal national football team. Whereas, Nepal Blue was effectively the B-team.[12][13]
Most of the Nepali top players play in the Nepal Red team, and it is also described as "the Nepal senior team", and is captained by the regular national team captain. While Nepal Blue is described as the "second string team".
(12 March 2015)
China 6–2 Nepal 
South Korea 16–0 Nepal 
