Nepal gear up for the Group ‘E’ matches of AFC U-16 Women’s Championship Qualifiers with the hosts taking on Philippines at the APF grounds in Halchowk on Wednesday.

The top two teams from the group, consisting of Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia and Nepal, will progress to the finals scheduled for next year in Thailand. The Qualifiers feature 29 teams divided in six groups. Each group have five teams except for Group ‘E’. Top two teams from each group along with top three finishers of the last editions—North Korea, South Korea and Japan—along with hosts Thailand will battle it out for the top prize.

All three visiting teams have already arrived in Kathmandu. “Philippines arrive on Saturday while other the two teams landed in Kathmandu today (Monday), informed the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) general secretary Indra Man Tuladhar. Syria who was drawn in the group withdrew from the tournament,” informed Tuladhar. After Philippines, Nepal will take on Myanmar on Friday and Malaysia on Sunday. ANFA has scheduled two matches in a day.

Tuladhar said ANFA is hoping that the Nepali girls will make it to the finals in their very first participation.”The SAFF U-15 Girls’ tournament was conducted to prepare teams for the Qualifiers,” said Tuladhar pointing towards the event held in Bhutan on August 9-18. Nepal crashed out in the semi-finals and eventually finished fourth after going down to Bhutan in the third place playoff match. Tuladhar also believed that the Nepali team has been under the closed camp training for the last three months making them one of the favourites.

Nepal’s coach Ganga Gurung, the former member of the national women’s team, expressed satisfaction over their preparations. “We really had good preparations and everyone has been doing an extra yard to qualify for the tournament proper,” said Gurung. “We may not be aware of the opponent’s quality but we still go into the tournament with mentality to win each game.”

Gurung also said that the U-15 Championship in Bhutan gave the team a good exposure going into the Qualifiers. “We failed to pass the semi-final hurdles in Bhutan but overall our girls played really well despite having no prior tournament exposure,” said Gurung adding that there were eight new faces in the team from the ones that took part in Bhutan. “I believe the team is tactically and technically sound,” Gurung said. She however said it would have been ideal had the team gone into such a big tournament with even greater preparation time. “Unlike ours, other teams usually train together for at least two years coming into such a tournament. That always makes a big difference,” said Gurung.