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.[2]

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.[3]

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.[4] 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 performed exceedingly well. 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 2010 regeneration, the women's side's FIFA ranking rose by 22 places.[5]

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

The Dasharath Rangasala at daytime in 2008

The team's home stadium is the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in central Kathmandu. It is shared with the Nepal men's national football team. Holding 25,000 spectators, of which 5,000 seated, the Dasarath Rangasala is the biggest stadium in Nepal. It is named after Dashrath Chand, one of Nepal's martyrs. 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.

An initial 31-player preliminary squad was named on 3 February 2024.[6] The final 23-player squad was announced on 12 February 2024.

No.	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Club
	1GK	Anjila Tumbapo Subba (Captain)	(1996-05-28)28 May 1996 (aged 27)	Sethu FC
	1GK	Anjana Rana Magar	(2002-01-17)17 January 2002 (aged 22)
	1GK	Usha Nath	(2001-01-23)23 January 2001 (aged 23)
	2DF	Gita Rana	(1996-09-21)21 September 1996 (aged 27)	Sethu FC
	2DF	Amrita Jaisi	(1994-10-15)15 October 1994 (aged 29)	Sports Odisha
	2DF	Hira Kumari Bhujel	(1995-12-26)26 December 1995 (aged 28)
	2DF	Bimala B.K.	(2002-04-17)17 April 2002 (aged 21)
	2DF	Nisha Thokar	(2001-02-01)1 February 2001 (aged 23)
	2DF	Samikshya Ghimire	(1999-12-26)26 December 1999 (aged 24)
	2DF	Puja Rana	(2001-03-29)29 March 2001 (aged 22)
	2DF	Sabina Chaudhary
	3MF	Anita Basnet	(1994-02-09)9 February 1994 (aged 30)
	3MF	Amisha Karki	(2005-10-23)23 October 2005 (aged 18)
	3MF	Anita K.C.	(1997-01-05)5 January 1997 (aged 27)
	3MF	Preeti Rai	(2004-11-20)20 November 2004 (aged 19)	Kickstart FC
	3MF	Dipa Shahi		Kickstart FC
	3MF	Bimala Chaudhary	(1997-03-01)1 March 1997 (aged 26)
	3MF	Chandra Bhandari
	3MF	Saraswati Hamal
	4FW	Sabitra Bhandari	(1996-05-02)2 May 1996 (aged 27)	EA Guingamp
	4FW	Rekha Poudel	(2001-01-07)7 January 2001 (aged 23)
	4FW	Rashmi Ghising	(2002-06-15)15 June 2002 (aged 21)	Sports Odisha
	4FW	Sabita Rana Magar	(2003-07-07)7 July 2003 (aged 20)

The following footballers were part of a national selection in the past twelve months, but are not part of the current squad.

Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club	Latest call-up
GK	Sapana Rai					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
DF	Puja Rana	(2001-03-28) 28 March 2001	1	0	Nepal Army Club	2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
DF	Anchali Waiba					v.  Bangladesh, 16 July 2023
DF	Ganga Gurung					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
DF	Pratichya Chaudhary					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
MF	Renuka Nagarkote	(1995-04-16) 16 April 1995	27	0		2022 Asian Games
MF	Saru Limbu	(2001-03-04) 4 March 2001	16	0		2022 Asian Games
MF	Anita Basnet	(1994-12-27) 27 December 1994	26	4		2022 Asian Games
MF	Samjhana Lawati					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
MF	Anjali Machamache					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
MF	Manmaya Damai					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
MF	Dipa Neupane					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
FW	Anushka Sherpa					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
FW	Chandra Bhandari					2024 WAFF Women's ChampionshipPRE
INJ Withdrew due to injury PRE Preliminary squad / standby RET Retired from the national team SUS Serving suspension WD Player withdrew from the squad due to non-injury issue.

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

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

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

• WAFF Women's Championship
  • Runners-up: 2024