Nepal face humiliating defeat

Kathmandu, September 6

Nepal national football team suffered a humiliating 7-0 defeat at the hands of Kuwait in the away match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Competition and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 Qualifiers in Kuwait City on Thursday night.

The home side opened up two-goal lead inside the first 13 minutes and never looked back at the Kuwait Sports Club Stadium. The home side dominated the show slamming home five more goals in the second half to inflict second largest defeat for Nepal in the World Cup qualifiers. Nepal had faced a 9-0 loss against Jordan in 2010.

Kuwait’s forward Bader al-Mutawaa (left) vies for the ball with Nepal’s forward Bimal Magar during the FIFA world cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 preliminary joint qualification round 2, at the Kuwait Sports Club Stadium in Kuwait City, on Friday, September 5, 2019. Photo: AFP

With defensive mindset and in a bid to concede less goals, Nepal coach Johan Kalin opted for 4-5-1 formation but that was not enough to stop Yousef Naser from opening the scoring in the sixth minute of the match. Fahd Al Hajeri doubled the tally in the 13th minute. Naser scored his second goal of the match in the 50th minute before Abdullah Al Mutairi made it 4-0 nine minutes later.

Skipper Bader Al Motawaa joined the party in the 67th minute, while Redha Abujabarah and Almosawi netted one each in the injury time to run salt in Nepal’s wounds. Apart from those seven goals, Nepal skipper Kiran Chemjong saved his teams on a couple of occasions after defense and midfield totally flopped. Nepal did create a couple of chances and Bishal Rai had the best of the opportunity but his volley was brilliantly saved by Kuwait goalie Sulaiman Abdulghafoor.

Nepal coach Kalin accepted his side’s performance was weak. “We said before, we will look for performance not for result but today we did not play well. I need to analyse what exactly went wrong. Looking at five games, we have conceded only one goal. We were good at defense. It’s pretty much seven silly goals. We are not very happy. We did not play like this,” said Kalin.

“After conceding two early goals, defenders came under pressure. It’s not only defense, it is a team. All 11 players are defense. We did not play as per our plan and it was easy for Kuwait. We knew Kuwait was a strong team. We knew ball will come behind us. It was a surprise that we were not stable to handle them. We need to do lot better in the next match,” he added. Nepal will next play against Chinese Taipei on September 10.

Kuwait coach Romeo Jozak was extremely happy to open the qualification with a win. “We are happy that we began with a win, a big win and with a good show after not playing four years due to suspension,” said Jozak. “The 7-0 score is important. Even 1-0 will give three points but with this result we are sending message not to Kuwait, not to Asia but to the world, Kuwait is back with bang.”

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