Sports
Nepal cautious in first game
Nepal will not take minnows Timor-Leste lightly when the two sides clash in a Group ‘A’ match of the AFC Solidarity Cup at the Nelgeri Stadium in Malaysia on Saturday.Nepal will not take minnows Timor-Leste lightly when the two sides clash in a Group ‘A’ match of the AFC Solidarity Cup at the Nelgeri Stadium in Malaysia on Saturday.
Both teams share the same rankings—186th—in the world but considering the start Timor-Leste had in the tournament, Nepal will have a slight edge with history favouring the South Asians. The two teams last clashed in the 2014 World Cup Qualifiers in 2011 with Nepal winning 2-1 and 5-0 in the first round legs.
Timor-Leste had a sour opening to their campaign, crashing to a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Brunei but Nepal coach Koji Gyotoku believes reading too much from the scoreline would be fatal judgment. “The rain disrupted the play so much between Timor-Leste and Brunei. So I cannot really say too much about that game,” the-afc.com quoted Gyotoku as saying.
“Both teams were equal in my opinion. That result doesn’t change things, we think the same as we did before. Timor-Leste weren’t that far behind in terms of quality and the condition of the pitch was a huge factor in the result. So we will be focused on this game,” the coach added.
An outright victory will be enough for Nepal to make it to the semi-finals from three-team Group ‘A’ and the pressure will be on Timor-Leste for whom even a draw could send them out considering the huge-margin loss they were inflicted in the first game.
Coach Fabio Joaquim wants his side to forget the result and focus on the match against Nepal. “The next game (against Nepal) will be very difficult because we need to win,” said Joaquim. “I will change some players and some tactics, but not because of the mistakes we made in the first game. We have one suspension and I’ll make three or four changes. We need to forget the past result and focus on the Nepal game,” added the Timor-Leste coach who will be without their striker Rufino Gama.
Nepal skipper Anil Gurung, a scorer in 2011 Qualifiers, has seen a lot of change in Timor-Leste side. “After seeing the first match, we noticed that they have changed a lot. They played physically in the soggy pitch and they were unlucky to concede goals,” Gurung told the official website of the All Nepal Football Association, adding the young Nepali team is capable enough to get a good grip of the match.
“The waterlogged conditions here demand power and physical game. We have experience of playing at soggy conditions back home and as the team is full of young players, we can have control over the game,” he added. Defender Rajin Dhimal and striker Ranjan Bista will miss Saturday’s game.
AFC introduced the seven-team AFC Solidarity Cup replacing the scrapped AFC Challenge Cup. Meant to be a nine-team tournament, it was supposed to be a contest between six teams eliminated from the first round of the joint qualification for 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup and three teams making exit from the Asian Cup second round Qualifiers.
Nepal, Pakistan, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Macau and Mongolia made exits from the 2018 Fifa World Cup first round qualifiers. Laos, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste were eliminated from the second round playoff of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. But Pakistan and Bangladesh opted out of the event.
Probable Starting XI
Goalkeeper: Kiran Chemjong Defenders: Ananta Tamang, Biraj Maharjan, Rabin Shrestha, Devendra Tamang
Midfielders: Anjan Bista, Bishal Rai, Bikram Lama, Heman Gurung Forwards: Bimal Gharti Magar, Nawayug Shrestha