Jhapa FC was eliminated as Pokhara Thunders progressed to make a comeback in the NSL
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It was a must win game for Pokhara Thunders. Even won. With this, Pokhara has reached the eliminator of Nepal Super League (NSL) on Tuesday. The team has 8 points. It is certain that Pokhara will now be in the top four. The only remaining question is who will be Pokhara's opponent at this stage? Kathmandu Razors or FC Chitwan?
One more question has been answered. Yes, Jhapa FC has been eliminated from the competition before their last match.
is in Jhapa's 4 points. Even if they win the next match, they will not reach Jhapa. The possibility of Butwal-Lumbini FC has already ended. In Qualifier-1, defending champions Lalitpur City FC and Dhangadhi FC will face each other first. Which of these teams will be on top remains to be answered. In this case, those two questions will be answered from the remaining two matches of the league stage. First of all, Lalitpur and Jhapa will compete. Then there will be a match between Dhangadhi and Chitwan. In this game, Kathmandu will be watching directly.
The initial journey of Pokhara itself was a struggle, as the team was under a lot of pressure after losing two games. In the next 4 games, Pokhara collected 8 points. In that sense, Pokhara was able to make a swift comeback. Coach Suman Shrestha was claiming that his team would reach the playoffs. He has fulfilled that promise.
Two goals from the head
This is the second time Pokhara has reached the playoffs. Last season, Pokhara was in the first place at the end of the league stage, the team could not repeat the same performance this time. However, Pokhara, who lost both the previous playoff games, will have an opportunity to present a serious challenge in the next eliminator. Ayush Ghalan and William Biasi were the scorers in the last match of the league stage. Coincidentally, both goals were made possible by headers. In the 10th minute of the game, Ayush gave Sameer Tamang's pass to the post. In the 59th minute of the game, Biasi converted captain Navayug Shrestha's corner ball into a goal. Ayush was very excited in the post match conference. He claimed, "Now the title will be our goal. It is possible if we all play together. It was a bit difficult at first. There were more negative things, but later the coach fixed it.
Coach Shrestha also admitted that his team gained momentum only after the end of two games. He said, "We are happy to have reached the playoffs. Our goal was to reach the playoffs. Today was a do-or-die game. We all sat together and discussed and made a game plan.' After a few days of rest, Pokhara will have an opportunity to prepare for the playoffs.
Weak Butwal-Lumbini
Butwal-Lumbini was limited to one point in 6 matches. The performance of the team was quite poor. Butwal-Lumbini drew the first match and lost 5 matches after that. This is the team's worst showing in its short three-season history. This is the first time a team has lost 5 games in a row. Not only that, in the history of the competition, after Chitwan, Butwal-Lumbini became the team that did not win a single match in the league stage.
Chitwan did not win any game in the first season. Butwal-Lumbini managed to score the only goal this time. In that sense it was a completely forgettable performance. Why so bad performance?
Captain Eric Bisht says, "It seems that we have failed in signing foreign players."
Bhutanese coach of the team Pushpalal Sharma said, "Where did we go wrong?" This is a difficult question. Our foreign players did not perform as expected. I myself had the opportunity to understand Nepali football closely.'
