The Martyr’s Memorial ANFA Women’s League kicked off at Chyasal Stadium on Wednesday, with Sankata FC and Tribhuvan Army FC emerging victorious in their respective first matches of the tournament.

Sankata played the opening match of the tournament against their arch-rivals New Road Team and registered a dominating win with the help of their foreign signings.

Three of the four foreign signings of Sankata found the back of the net in the 4-0 win over NRT.

Win Thiengi Tun, Myanmar’s national team skipper, scored the first goal of the tournament and took Sankata into the lead within five minutes of the first whistle.

Lucia Leila Jose Mocambique from Mozambique extended the lead to 2-0 in the 26th minute. Sukriya Miya was the only Nepali goalscorer for Sankata as she made it 3-0 before the first half.

NRT were under pressure throughout the match.

Tun and Mocambique alone had sufficient chances to hammer more goals. However, as Sankata missed many, NRT could feel at least some relief.

Ghana’s Queenabel Akosua Amankrah scored the fourth goal for Sankata in the 46th minute.

“We came with the plan to either play a draw or concede as few goals as possible,” said Bijay Maharjan, NRT’s head coach, during the post-match press conference.

On the other hand, Army blasted five goals past Jhapa FC and kept a clean sheet in the second match of the day.

Jhapa were able to prevent Army from scoring in the first half. Jhapa were taking the ball into Army’s half every now and then in the first 45 minutes, though they struggled getting past Army’s experienced defender Bimala BK.

Army dominated the second half. With Dipa Shahi, who was everywhere throughout the game, opening the goal tally in the 57th minute, Army were 3-0 up by the end of 90 minutes of regulation time.

Hima Chaudhary and Anjana Thulung Rai scored in the 68th and 86th minutes, respectively.

With a cushion of 3-0, Army kept attacking in seven minutes of injury time. As a result, Rai scored in the first of the seven minutes to make it 4-0, while Tulasa Bohora scored the team’s fifth goal with a minute remaining.

There are two matches at Chyasal Stadium on Thursday. Bagmati Youth Club will face RS Pokhara in the first match, while Nepal Police Club will play against Church Boys United in the second fixture.