Amid the uncertainty, confusion and controversy that has been prevailing in Nepali football lately, the women's national team is playing the inaugural match of the Women's SAFF Championship on Monday. Nepal's first opponent in Group 'A' of the tournament that is about to start in Goa, India, is Bhutan.

Will the women's national team break the title drought by staying true to the history of Nepali football achieving international success only in such unusual circumstances? A performance other than the title will be another failure for the Nepali team. In such a situation, the team led by coach Navin Neupane will have only one goal, winning the title.

The third team in Nepal's group is Sri Lanka. In that sense, a semi-final journey is 100% expected for Nepal, that too as the group winner. The team's real journey in the competition will start from the semi-finals and the most important question will be, who will be Nepal's opponent in the last four? The answer to this is also quite simple, either two-time defending champion Bangladesh, or five-time winner India.

These are the two teams likely to reach the semi-finals from the other group. The other team in this group, Maldives, is considered very weak compared to Bangladesh and India. Who will be the group winner, this is the only fact that makes this group exciting. This is the eighth edition of the Women's SAFF Championship. Except for one occasion, Nepal has reached the final every time and has also lost in the title match on all those occasions.

In this way, Nepal is also the runner-up six times. The journey of the women's national team, which began in the 80s, has not recorded any other achievements other than being the runner-up.

‘Everyone is excited’

Coach Neupane claimed that the Nepali team is excited in the pre-match conference held in Goa on the eve of the competition. He said, ‘All the players are fit. Similarly, all the players are excited about the competition. It is great for us that all the players are fully prepared. There was no problem during the preparation. I believe that all the players are focused on the competition. Our goal is to win the title. We have come here to win.’

He expressed confidence that this time, although the Nepali team has been limited to the runner-up position continuously, it will be a different story. Nepal is playing without Savitra Bhandari, who has been the team’s main player. Similarly, Savita Rana Magar will not be in the team. Both are trying to recover from injuries. Coach Neupane also said that Nepal will try to play well by dedicating itself to these players. He also said that this time they will give a chance to new players in their place. Nepali team captain Angela Subba also said that everyone's focus is on winning the title.

She said, 'We have been limited to runners-up many times, but this time our focus will be on the title.' Claiming that Nepal's performance in previous competitions has become history, she said, 'Our focus is only on this competition now, we have not focused on what happened before. For now, our focus is on tomorrow's game and the aim will be to do well in it.' Nepal has played against Bhutan five times so far, all of them in the SAFF Championship. Nepal is undefeated in all these games against Bhutan.

But in the last SAFF Championship, Bhutan held Nepal to a goalless draw in Kathmandu. Otherwise, Nepal has scored 23 goals against Bhutan in these five matches and has not conceded any goals so far. Captain Angela, recalling the last draw against Bhutan, wanted to give confidence that such a result will not happen again. Bhutan itself will be inspired by the result of that draw and its aim will also be to enter the semi-finals. Bhutan had made a consecutive semi-final trip in the last two editions. This is Bhutan's best performance so far in the competition.