Nepal women's national football team

Nepal formed a women's national team in the mid-1980s and debuted in the 1986 AFC Women's Championship. During the start of the tournament, Nepal played their first official match against Hong Kong (December 14, 1986), which they lost with a score of 1-0. Nepal women's side also participated in the final three phases of the Asian Cup in 1986, 1989 and 1999, never going beyond the group stages. Nepal proved to be in a difficult group with former champions Thailand, alongside Indonesia and Hong Kong, two relatively strong teams. As a result, Nepal had lost all three matches, two of them indefinitely, while the match against Hong Kong proved to be a steady profit. In 1989 Nepal played again in the championship, against the same opponents, except that Thailand was substituted against Japan. This resulted in ugly points for Nepal, who lost every game by a wide margin, the smallest 0-3 against Hong Kong.

Nepal's Soccer Fifa First Vice President Is Kamal Thapa. Nepal's First Woman Captain Is Rama Singh When Nepali Women Football Team Was Created, Mr. Kamal Thapa Was The President Of All Nepal Football Association and the first National Woman Team Captain Is Rama Singh, Who represented bagmati team and she started playing in the year 1985, Second National Women Team Captain Is Kamala Hirachan who is a represented Gandaki Team and the third women captain is, Meera Chaudhary who represented Naryani team, Rama Singh Is Now The First News Reader In Nepali television history, and Meera Chaudhary is in a rank of DSP in Nepal police. The first female international goal scorer of Nepal is Pema Dolma Lama, who scored a goal against Uzbekistan in 1999 AFC Women's Championship held in Philippines.

As a result of the democracy uprising in 1990, there was an eight-year period without women national team. This negatively affected player recruitment, but nevertheless Nepal soon returned into international football during the Women's Asian Cup in 1999. Despite their triumphant return, the results were about the same as before the eight-year hiatus. The championship ended in the group-stage with Japan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and the Philippines, where Nepal lost all four games. Since then, Nepal has not appeared in the Women's Asian cup. Former men's national team technical director, Holger Obermann served as the technical advisor for the Chelis during their 1999 campaign.[3]

However, this does not mean that Nepal had not played football since 1999. The Mangladevi League, roughly a month-long women's football tourney, was set up trying to bring in women football players across the country. It was played in early 2000, in a league-cum-knockout basis. It was an initiative taken by a single person, but sadly discontinued after a year.[4]

Nepal had a long period without matches, but they impressed many in the South Asian Games in 2010, where they reached the final after beating several opponents by a wide margin . In the finals they lost narrowly 1–3 against the big favorite India. This gave the national team a much needed recognition. The 11th South Games also was the first to host a women's football event as well.[5] In the opening match of the 2010 South Asian Games, Nepal women's U23 faced hosts Bangladesh, where they won with a single goal. The second match against Sri Lanka proved to be more illustrious as victory came in the form of 8 goals while holding a clean sheet. However, the scoring spree was short lived as the third group-stage match against India saw a heavy 0–5 loss. Nevertheless, Nepal had done enough to qualify for the second round (semi finals) against Pakistan which they won with a resounding 7–0 scoreline. This meant that Nepal would face a difficult rematch against India in the finals, although any result would ensure a medal at the very least for the Chelis. Despite finally ending the scoring drought against India, the game was lost 1–3. Despite putting on a valiant performance, the Chelis returned home with a silver medal which came to the delight of many supporters of Nepalese football due to the rarity of the occasion.

The regeneration of Women's football in Nepal was first realised when after the national leagues were reinstated in 2009. The women's national team prior to this, hadn't played an international game for 5 years. Nevertheless, the Chelis began training for two upcoming major international tournaments in the following year. In 2010, Nepali women footballers returned with two runner-up trophies, one from the 11th South Asian Games, and the other from the SAFF Women's Football Championship. Despite limited training, resources and less attention compared to the men's team, the women's team had performed exceedingly well internationally. In the South Asian Games, they defeated Sri Lanka 8–0, and in SAFF they thrashed Afghanistan 13–0 and Pakistan 11–0. Striker Anu Lama was the star of SAFF, scoring three hat-tricks to be declared the best player of the tournament. However, the team was defeated 0–5 by India in the SAG final, but it was a much more closely fought match when they lost 0–1 to the same team in the SAFF final recently.

Following the team's regeneration since 2010, the women's side rose 22 places in the FIFA ranking.[6]

The following 20 players were called up for the 2020 AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament Second Round on 3 April 2019.[8]

No.	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club
16	1GK	Anjila Tumbapo Subba	(1996-07-26) 26 July 1996	20	0	APF Club
20	1GK	Anjana Rana Magar	(2002-01-18) 18 January 2002	4	0	Nepal Army Club
22	1GK	Usha Nath	(2001-01-23) 23 January 2001	0	0	Nepal Police Club
15	2DF	Man Maya Limbu	(1992-02-19) 19 February 1992	28	0	APF Club
3	2DF	Punam Jargha Magar	(1993-06-27) 27 June 1993	26	1	Nepal Army Club
6	2DF	Hira Kumari Bhujel	(1995-12-26) 26 December 1995	25	1	APF Club
12	2DF	Gita Rana	(1996-09-10) 10 September 1996	21	0	APF Club
5	2DF	Amrita Jaishi	–	19	0	Nepal Police Club
2	2DF	Kabita Dhimal	–	2	0	Nepal Army Club
23	2DF	Puja Rana	(2001-03-28) 28 March 2001	1	0	Nepal Army Club
19	3MF	Dipa Rai	(1991-02-02) 2 February 1991	27	0	Nepal Army Club
7	3MF	Renuka Nagarkote	(1995-04-16) 16 April 1995	27	0	APF Club
11	3MF	Anita Basnet	(1995-02-09) 9 February 1995	26	2	Sethu FC
18	3MF	Manjali Kumari Yonjon	(2001-07-04) 4 July 2001	21	4	APF Club
27	3MF	Saru Limbu	(2001-03-06) 6 March 2001	16	0	APF Club
25	3MF	Anita KC	(1998-01-04) 4 January 1998	9	0	APF Club
21	3MF	Sharmila Thapa	(1993-03-07) 7 March 1993	8	2	APF Club
14	4FW	Niru Thapa (captain)	(1990-08-29) 29 August 1990	41	13	Nepal Police Club
9	4FW	Sabitra Bhandari	(1996-05-28) 28 May 1996	34	38	Gokulam Kerala FC
8	4FW	Rekha Paudel	(2002-01-09) 9 January 2002	5	1	APF Club