The South Asian Football Federation initiated an underage tournament in the men’s category in 2011 with the SAFF U16 Championship, which was hosted at Nepal’s Dasharath Stadium.

Since then, SAFF has organised the U16 Championship thrice (2013, 2015 and 2023), the U15 Championship thrice (2017, 2018 and 2019) and the U17 Championship twice (2022 and 2024). The U17 tournament is seeing its third edition underway in Colombo, Sri Lanka; it is the 10th edition of SAFF’s underage tournament in the men’s category.

Nepal and India have been two consistent participants in all 10 editions, having faced each other at least once in each of them. The two teams have confronted each other 12 times in the past nine editions, with India emerging victorious in 11 of them.

Having been drawn into separate groups in the 2011 U16 Championship, Nepal and India met in the semi-final stage. They played a 1-1 draw, and the match went to a penalty shootout where Nepal lost 2-4.

Two years later, Nepal and India were playing for the title of the 2013 U16 Championship. This time India won 1-0. It was the first of the four times that India denied Nepal the title in the men’s underage category.

The score then repeated between Nepal and India in the next two editions of the U16 Championship. India defeated Nepal 1-0 in the semi-final stage and group stage of U16 Championships in 2015 and 2023.

There were three editions in which Nepal and India faced off twice. The first was in the inaugural SAFF U15 Championship in 2017. India had then defeated Nepal with a score of 2-1 in the group stage and the final of the tournament.

They met each other in the fight for third place in the 2018 SAFF U15 Championship, where Nepal lost 0-1. The 2019 SAFF U15 Championship was the bitterest one for Nepal as they lost 0-5 in the league stage and 0-7 in the final.

As the underage tournament, which saw a halt with the Covid-19 pandemic, returned in 2022 as the SAFF U17 Championship, Nepal got their redemption. Nepal registered their first win against India in the group stage with a score of 3-1. But when Nepal reached the final, India were waiting; they then defeated Nepal with a dominating score of 4-0 and lifted the title.

Their last encounter was in the 2024 SAFF U17 Championship’s semi-final. Nepal then lost 2-4.

The past results show that Nepal, who have hosted the men’s underage events four times, have always struggled against India, who have won the underage events six times. Therefore, as Nepal are heading for their 13th encounter against India in the semi-final of the SAFF U17 Championship on Thursday, Nepali fans are doubtful.

After ANFA posted on Facebook that Nepal would face India in the semi-final, there were a good number of fans who commented that Nepal would easily concede 5/6 goals and that winning against India was a far cry. It was only from the afternoon of September 21 that ANFA started allowing comments on its Facebook posts after disallowing the section for over two months.

Meanwhile, Nepal’s coaching staff and players believe that this edition can be different from the previous ones. Speaking at the pre-tournament conference as well as the post-match conferences after defeating Sri Lanka 2-0 and losing to Bangladesh 0-4, Nepal’s staff have been stating that they are focusing on the next game while not wallowing in the past.

Nepal and India’s match kicks off at the Colombo Racecourse Stadium at 7:15pm Nepali time on September 25.