Nepal beat Macau to lift AFC Solidarity Cup

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Abdul Karim (second left) posing with Nepal players and coaches after they clinched the AFC Solidarity Cup.

Abdul Karim (second left) posing with Nepal players and coaches after they clinched the AFC Solidarity Cup.

KUCHING: Nepal beat Macau 1-0 in the inaugural AFC Solidarity Cup final at Sarawak Stadium on Tuesday evening.

The title was a major historic achievement for Nepalese football under their new coach Gyotoku Koji.

The muddy pitch caused by heavy rain limited the mobility of both teams.

However, Nepal managed to dominate the match with numerous scoring chances.

An early chance came in the 28th minute but Bimal Gharti’s attempt was saved by Macau goalkeeper Ho Man Fai.

In the next minute, however, Sujal Shreshta gave them the lead after heading in a cross from Bharat Khawas.

Nepal continued to dominate in the second half.

In the 50th minute, Macau again had to thank Ho Man Fai for thwarting Anjan Bista’s shot on target.

Macau rarely threatened Nepal’s defense throughout.

The score-line remained until the end of the match.

Despite helming his team to become champions, Koji was not exactly satisfied with the performance of his players.

According to him, Nepal should have converted their dominance into more goals.

“I’m happy to be the champion and the overall performance of the team, however, I’m not satisfied,” said the Japanese coach.

“We will be heading back to Nepal and continue with our training. During the game we had a lot of chances but we failed to score and this is our problem which needs to be addressed. We need to score more goals in order to be stronger.

“We did not concede a goal in the final which is a good sign but sometimes we make mistakes. I don’t know how many chances we had, but the opponent’s defense and goalkeeper was good.

Meanwhile, Laos took the third place after defeating Brunei Darussalam 3-2 in the play-off.

The two-week second-tier tournament of the Asian Football Confederation was participated by seven countries including Timor Leste, Sri Lanka and Mongolia.

Assistant Minister of Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah presented the prizes to the winners.