When Kiran Kumar Limbu made his debut for Nepal for the first time, he thought that his playing life would end at that moment. However, 17 years later, this same goalkeeper will be the player who played the most matches for Nepal. Another record is being added to him.

Nepal is facing Bangladesh in an international friendly match at Dasharath Stadium on Saturday. The Bangladeshi team has come to Nepal to play two friendly matches. Coincidentally, Kiran is currently spending his professional football life in the Premier League of Bangladesh. When facing the national team of the same country, he is touching the magical figure of 50 with the number of captaincy games. Why is Kiran's special data, it is connected with Bangladesh? 

The first day to go back to that debut game was May 24, 2008 . In the AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers, Nepal faced Macau in Phnom Penh, Vietnam. Coach Thomas Flath gave Kiran a chance for the first time, but he lasted only 23 minutes on the field. Kiran's jaw was seriously injured in a fight with Macau players. After returning to Kathmandu for a long period of treatment, there was a satisfactory improvement. 

"When I was injured and I was on the field, I thought, this is the end of my playing life." I won't be able to play for Nepal again. Not only from Nepal, I had a doubt that I can play football,'' Kiran said later. Surgery was needed during the treatment. Then he also played football. He made his comeback from the match against Bhutan on March 17, 2011. 

Coach Graham Roberts gave him a second 'cap'. What happened next, is now history . He is the first player to play 100 matches for Nepal. This in itself became a historic achievement . Now he is the one who captains the most games. Playing 50 games for Nepal is also a big thing, but for other players it is a dream . Rumalline is also in the dream of debut. 

How lucky Kiran is, he is entering the field wearing an arm-band for Nepal for the 50th time in the first match against Bangladesh . Does Kiran remember being captained for the first time by Nepal? He says, 'Why not? How can I forget that day? It was an amazing experience, it was full of pride .'

was the SAFF Championship of 2018. It happened in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Coach Balgopal Maharjan first gave him the captaincy opportunity. The regular captain at that time was Viraj Maharjan. Meanwhile, Bharat Khawas also became the captain. Kiran started captaining regularly after 2019. He captained that year's international friendly against Chinese Taipei.

Then it turned into a regular process . In between, some other players also got the opportunity to captain. But in all of them others got that chance only in the absence of Kiran . Right now, there is no one who can remove Kiran from the responsibility of handling the Nepali goal post. Even if he doesn't have anything, he still plans to play until the age of 40. 

"I will continue to play for another 4-5 years," he says. In particular, there is no plan for his retirement. Bangladesh police did not invite him to play in the league there. When he will really stop playing, it will be fun to calculate how many records will be added to his name. Many of those records are rarely broken . 

Nepal's captain so far and the number of games he has led

Name                                 Game number

Kiran Kumar Limbu                   49

Sagar Thapa                              42

Rajukaji Shakya                      35

Ganesh Thapa                             24

Viraj Maharjan                         18

Upendraman Singh                       17

Rakesh Shrestha                            14

Roopkaraj Sharma                      13

Deepak Amatya                         10

Vasant Thapa                            5

Sriram Ranjitkar                    4

Balgopal Maharjan                4

Bharat Khawas                          4

Hari Khadka                          3

Suresh Panthi                          2

Anil Gurung                        2

Navyug Shrestha                          2

Vasant Gurung                        1