KATHMANDU, Nov 20: Nepal national football team went down 1-0 defeat against Kuwait during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 preliminary joint qualifiers home match played at the Changlimithang Stadium in Thimpu, Bhutan on Tuesday.
Kuwait completes a double against Nepal playing its home match in Bhutan after registering a 7-0 win in the first leg played at Kuwait’s Jaber al-Ahmad International Stadium in September.
Kuwait captain Bader Al Almotawaa scored the only and decisive goal of the match at the 27th minute. Almotawaa beat Nepal skipper and goalie Kiran Chemjong with his left footed shot.
Kuwait ended the dominating first half with 1-0 lead. The visiting team displayed strong game with the average height being a visible physical advantage over the Nepali lads. Nepal was pushed back to defend from the whistle.
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Nepal’s number one football player Rohit Chand’s shot was saved in the bottom corner by Kuwait goalkeeper Hameed Yousseef five minutes before the break. Earlier, Abhisek Rijal failed to collect a beautiful cross from Ravi Shankar Paswan at the penalty area.
Kuwait continued its momentum in the second half bettering the first half performance. Almotawaa’s free-kick went high above the goal post in the 61st minute. For Nepal, Paswan missed an opportunity in the 65th minute when his shot was saved by Yousseef at the near post. After 70th minute mark, Nepal was not able to register a single shot, on or off target, during the open-play.
Nepal’s defense led by Chemjong made splendid save one-on-one to neutralize Mobarak Alfaneeni’s technical attempt from a volley. Nepal head coach made all the substitutions after the 80 minute mark but none was able to make any impact in the match. The last substitute Bharat Khawas was not able to possess the ball during his late entry.
Nepal’s poor day at the attack summed up after Ranjit Dhimal’s free-kick attempt in the 90th minute punched away by Yousseef to deny Nepal any salvation from the match.
Earlier, Nepal had started with the readjusted playing set after missing out on first team players like striker Bimal Gharti Magar, playmaker Anjan Bista, midfielder Santosh Tamang and defender Dinesh Rajbanshi. ANFA said it took an action against them for visiting nightclubs on the eve of leaving Nepal for Bhutan. Ajit, Ananta Tamang, Abhishek Rijal, Bikram Lama,Tej Tamang, Sujal Shrestha, Kiran Chemjong (C), Devendra Tamang, Ranjit Dhimal, Ravi Shankar Paswan and Rohit Chand started the match.
Nepal’s assistant coach Kiran Shrestha said Nepal deserved at least a point from the match after the players performed well with positive attitude but failed to capitalize chances.
“Boys did very well on the pitch with positive attitude. We should have at least gained one point but we failed to capitalize the chances. We will work more on the mistakes made today and will focus on the remaining matches,” said Shrestha during the post-match conference.
