Nepali youth football team, most often formed by the ANFA Academy players, has made a habit of near-misses at international tournaments. The recent run to the semi-finals of the SAFF U-15 Championship, where it crashed to 4-0 defeat against Pakistan, calls for a thought as to why so well-groomed set of players fail to deliver.

The failure makes all more bitter considering Nepal was the only side to have trained together in football academy for two years. They should have run away with the title without any trouble for all the coordination and understanding a team should have training for such a long period together. Going by the words of coaches of the visiting teams, none had such a privilege and had only assembled teams to train for a few months. Pakistan finished runner up despite undergoing just 20 days of training while the champion Bangladesh had three-month training if the words of their coaches are to be believed.

This was not the first time that Nepal has failed to live up to its billing. Nepal played hosts in four of the five SAFF U-15 Championship and has yet to lift the silverware with its Academy team, formed by nationwide selection conducted by the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA).

“Considering the performance and outcome of late the ANFA Academy must be said a total failure. The investment has not been bearing fruit,” said an ANFA insider seeking anonymity. “ANFA has failed to cash in on the popularity of football which is still the No 1 sport in the country unlike other countries of South Asia. “We are not short of talents but we need proper channels to unearth them. There is no grassroots tournament in the real sense. We are relying on just the central academy instead of having it in all 47 district FAs. By doing so we will have a greater number of players to chose from,” he said, calling for ANFA to review working ways of the Academy.

Former Nepali international and coach of the women team Kumar Thapa calls for end to running a single Academy.  “ANFA must pave way for clubs to start its own academies by providing them technical and logistic support rather than running an academy on its own,” said Thapa. “It has been two decades since ANFA started the Academy but they have not analysed the outcome.”

Thapa said ANFA should hunt for the talents and facilitate them with the training. “The football governing body has instead picked up a handful children for their Academy and formed a team. By doing so numerous other talents are going down drain.” Thapa said most of the countries scout youth talents prior to a tournament and release them at the end of the campaign. “Such practice provides opportunities for more players to compete in a selection, unlike ANFA Academy concept which shuts the door for numerous hidden talents besides a few.” Thapa also believed that competitive football exposure to the youth was key to its performance at the international level. “There must be long tournaments, at least three or four-month long league. Only then can we expect them to deliver rather than running syndicate in operating youth academy,” added Thapa.

This news was published on November 5 edition of The Kathmandu Post.