Coach Suman Shrestha has rightly said that many people who look at Pokhara Thunders have a slightly different view. Maybe even unequal. Moreover, this team had a bad start by losing the first two games. Who can forget his match against FC Chitwan at the start of the Nepal Super League (NSL)?

The game started late amid confusion and uncertainty. Now this team has reached 'Qualifier-2' and has become ambitious.

Pokhara defeated Chitwan in the eliminator and reached the finals. In this situation, Pokhara is a team that has gradually moved forward. In stark contrast, Chitwan's start itself has been excellent, winning two matches in a row. After that, Chitwan's game, which has been going down continuously, has finally come to an 'eliminator' and has come to a complete stop. 

Pokhara will now face Dhangadhi FC in the 'qualifier-two' on Wednesday. The winner of this will advance to the final and there waiting for him, Lalitpur City FC. In the last game before the

final, Pokhara fully deserved to win. In the words of Chitwan coach Naveen Neupane, Pokhara played very well while Chitwan played poorly. Since losing the first two games, Pokhara has been undefeated in the following five games.

This is Pokhara's most consistent good performance in three seasons of NSL. Pokhara's performance is really good, if in these five games, they have kept a clean seat four times.

3 goals in 13 minutes

Although both teams created opportunities one after the other, the decisive moment of the game was the 13 minutes of the second half and Chitwan scored three goals in this period. The hero of this victory was Ghanaian Joey Idu who scored two goals. The other goal was suicide. In the 63rd minute of the match, Abhishek Limbu directed Sameer Tamang's 'cross' to his own post. Aidoo added a second goal in the 72nd minute and luck played a big role in that too.

Idu's shot deflected off Chitwan's Jonathan Campbell and turned into a goal. Pokhara didn't have to wait long for the third goal and in the 76th minute, Chandan Das scored a clever shot from the penalty area.

The game after that was only formal in a way. "There is a turning point in the game, it doesn't mean that we played badly in the first half. I think this is Pokhara's best performance in the whole competition so far," added coach Shrestha.

His opinion was that as the competition progressed, the team began to coordinate. Everyone knows what happened in the first game. Moreover, we were not even able to prepare well before that. But as the days went by, our team's performance also started getting better. 

I would also like to thank the team management for this. Now our goal is to win the title. We will focus on that.

Disappointed Chitwan

Chitwan reached the play-offs of the tournament for the first time, but its journey could not go further than that. "We were very happy when we reached the play-offs, but now we are equally sad when we lost in the eliminator," said coach Neupane. In particular, our attack was not decisive. I think our players started to get tired, it had a clear effect.'  

Coach Neupane was also a bit unlucky. He was the coach when Pokhara played the previous two seasons. He came to Chitwan only this time. But after defeating his own team, Pokhara has reached "Qualifier-2". He was the only one lucky enough to be in the coaching role for all three seasons.