Nepal is facing Chinese Taipei, ranked 42nd in the FIFA rankings, on Tuesday.
What you should know
Nepal's new rival in international women's football is Chinese Taipei. The team is also very high in the FIFA rankings, at 42nd place.
It is also ranked seventh among Asian countries. Nepal, which is currently on a tour of Indonesia, will face Chinese Taipei on Tuesday. In this way, it is certain that the challenge presented by this team to Nepal will be tough.
Indonesia defeated Nepal 2-1 in the first match of the tournament being held in Yogyakarta as the Three Nations Cup. Then, Chinese Taipei easily defeated Indonesia 5-0. Nepal will still have a chance to win the title by remaining at the top of the three countries. But the path to be decided for this is difficult, a big victory over Chinese Taipei.
Talking to the media on the eve of the match, coach Navin Neupane has admitted that Chinese Taipei will be a strong opponent. He said, ‘We created many opportunities against Indonesia. But they defeated us on the counter-attack. Our problem is in creating decisive attacks. We are attacking, but we are failing to make it decisive.’
Neupane says that we need to improve to face Chinese Taipei. ‘When facing a strong opponent, our plan needs to be mature and we will play accordingly. We will probably rarely get a chance to attack in this game. We will have to make good use of such opportunities. We will play with a winning mentality. Indonesia was ranked lower than us, but we lost at the same time,’ coach Neupane explained his strategy, ‘Now we have an opportunity to defeat a team higher than us in the rankings.’
Angela Subba, who is in charge of the captaincy, also said that the team’s preparation is good overall. ‘We could not win the last game against Indonesia, but all the players had fulfilled their respective responsibilities in it. We have not given up,’ she added, ‘It is just that we could not score a goal. Otherwise, the team’s performance would have been good. We are all fully prepared for the match against Chinese Taipei. We have prepared both mentally and physically. Our aim will be to perform well once again. A good result will be the goal. Chinese Taipei is a team above us. We will have to play together against this team.’
