Nepal women's national football team

First international football game in the Nepali women's football in 1984

Nepal formed a women's national team in the mid-1980s and debuted in the 1986 AFC Women's Championship. During the start of the tournament, Nepal played their first official match against Hong Kong (14 December 1986), which they lost with a score of 1–0. Nepal women's side also participated in the final three phases of the Asian Cup in 1986, 1989 and 1999, never going beyond the group stages. Nepal proved to be in a difficult group with former champions Thailand, alongside Indonesia and Hong Kong, two relatively strong teams. As a result, Nepal had lost all three matches, two of them jarringly, while the match against Hong Kong proved to be a steady profit. In 1989 Nepal played again in the championship, against the same opponents, except that Thailand was substituted against Japan. This resulted in meagre points for Nepal, who lost every game by a wide margin, the smallest 0–3 against Hong Kong.

Nepal's FIFA First Vice President was Kamal Thapa. Nepal's first woman captain was Rama Singh when the Nepali women's football team was created, Kamal Thapa was the president of the All Nepal Football Association. Singh, who represented the Bagmati team, started playing in 1985. The second national team's captain was Kamala Hirachan who also represented the Gandaki team and the third women captain was Meera Chaudhary who represented Naryani team. Singh later became the first newsreader in Nepali television history, and Chaudhary has held a rank of DSP in Nepal police. The first female international goal scorer of Nepal is Pema Dolma Lama, who scored a goal against Uzbekistan at the 1999 AFC Women's Championship held in Philippines.

As a result of the democracy uprising in 1990, there was an eight-year period without a women's national team. This negatively affected player recruitment, but nevertheless Nepal soon returned to international football during the Women's Asian Cup in 1999. Despite their triumphant return, the results were about the same as before the eight-year hiatus. The championship ended in the group-stage with Japan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and the Philippines, where Nepal lost all four games. Since then, Nepal has not appeared in the Women's Asian cup. Former men's national team technical director, Holger Obermann served as the technical advisor for the Chelis during their 1999 campaign.[3]

However, this did not mean that Nepal had not played football since 1999. The Mangladevi League, roughly a month-long women's football tourney, was set up trying to bring in women football players across the country. It was played in early 2000, in a league-cum-knockout basis. It was an initiative taken by a single person, but sadly discontinued after a year.[4]

Nepal had a long period without matches, but they impressed many in the South Asian Games in 2010, where they reached the final after beating several opponents by a wide margin. In the finals they lost narrowly 1–3 against the big favorite India. This gave the national team a much needed recognition. The 11th South Asian Games also were the first to host a women's football event as well.[5] In the opening match of the 2010 South Asian Games, Nepal women's U23 faced hosts Bangladesh, where they won with a single goal. The second match against Sri Lanka proved to be more illustrious as victory came in the form of 8 goals while holding a clean sheet. However, the scoring spree was short lived as the third group-stage match against India saw a heavy 0–5 loss. Nevertheless, Nepal had done enough to qualify for the second round (semi finals) against Pakistan which they won with a resounding 7–0 scoreline. This meant that Nepal would face a difficult rematch against India in the finals, although any result would ensure a medal at the very least for the Chelis. Despite finally ending the scoring drought against India, the game was lost 1–3. Despite putting on a valiant performance, the Chelis returned home with a silver medal which came to the delight of many supporters of Nepali football due to the rarity of the occasion.

The regeneration of Women's football in Nepal was first realised when after the national leagues were reinstated in 2009. The women's national team prior to this, hadn't played an international game for 5 years. Nevertheless, the Chelis began training for two upcoming major international tournaments in the following year. In 2010, Nepali women footballers returned with two runner-up trophies, one from the 11th South Asian Games, and the other from the SAFF Women's Football Championship. Despite limited training, resources and less attention compared to the men's team, the women's team had performed exceedingly well internationally. In the South Asian Games, they defeated Sri Lanka 8–0, and in SAFF they thrashed Afghanistan 13–0 and Pakistan 11–0. Striker Anu Lama was the star of SAFF, scoring three hat-tricks to be declared the best player of the tournament. However, the team was defeated 0–5 by India in the SAG final, but it was a much more closely fought match when they lost 0–1 to the same team in the SAFF final recently.

Following the team's regeneration since 2010, the women's side rose 22 places in the FIFA ranking.[6]

The Nepal women's national football team has been known or nicknamed as the "Nepali Chelis".

The Dasharath Rangasala at daytime in 2008

The team's home ground are various around the nation also shared with the Nepal national football team at the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in central Kathmandu, Nepal. Holding 25,000 spectators, of which 5,000 seated, it is the biggest stadium in Nepal. It is named after Dashrath Chand, one of the martyrs of Nepal. Prior to the 2013 SAFF Championship in Nepal, the Dasarath Rangasala underwent heavy renovation that saw several improvements such as the expansion of seats from 20,000 to 25,000.

• The following players were named on for the Bangladesh friendly on 7 July 2023.[8]

No.	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club
16	1GK	Anjila Tumbapo Subba	(1996-05-28) 28 May 1996	20	0	Sethu
20	1GK	Anjana Rana Magar	(2002-01-17) 17 January 2002	4	0	Nepal Army Club
22	1GK	Usha Nath	(2001-02-02) 2 February 2001	0	0	Nepal Police Club
5	2DF	Amrita Jaishi	age= (1994-10-15) 15 October 1994	19	0	Nepal Police Club
12	2DF	Gita Rana	(1996-09-21) 21 September 1996	21	0	APF Club
6	2DF	Hira Kumari Bhujel	(1995-12-26) 26 December 1995	25	1	APF Club
23	2DF	Puja Rana	(2001-03-28) 28 March 2001	1	0	Nepal Army Club
	2DF	Bimala BK			0
	2DF	Nisha Thokar			0
	2DF	Samikshya Ghimire			0
	2DF	Anchali Waiba			0
7	3MF	Renuka Nagarkote	(1995-04-16) 16 April 1995	27	0	Kickstart
27	3MF	Saru Limbu	(2001-03-04) 4 March 2001	16	0	Kickstart
	3MF	Bimala Chaudhary
11	3MF	Anita Basnet	(1994-12-27) 27 December 1994	26	4	Lords FA Kochi
	3MF	Preeti Rai
	3MF	Dipa Shahi
9	4FW	Sabitra Bhandari	(1996-05-23) 23 May 1996	40	42	Hapoel Ra'anana A.F.C. (women)
25	4FW	Anita KC	(1997-06-25) 25 June 1997	9	0	APF Club
2	4FW	Sabita Rana Magar
2	4FW	Rashmi Kumari Ghising
2	4FW	Amisha Karki
8	4FW	Rekha Paudel	(2002-01-09) 9 January 2002	5	1	Sports Odisha

• Rama Singh
• Anu Lama
• Jamuna Gurung
• Sajana Rana
• Sabitra Bhandari
• Lila Lamgade

-Best goalkeeper of the Year 2013, 2014 and 2015

• SAFF Women's Championship
  • Runners-up: 2010, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2022

• South Asian Games
  • Runners-up: 2010, 2016, 2019

• Nadezhda Cup
  • Runners-up: 2019

• Women's Gold Cup
  • Runners-up: 2019