Lankan women’s soccer team to tour Nepal

Both Sri Lanka National Football teams Men’s and Women’s are set to play in International tournaments this month. Football Federation of Sri Lanka is set to send their Men’s U 23 and Women’s National Team for the international tours to Bahrain and Nepal respectively.

The women’s national football team will depart to Nepal on 10th March 2019 to participate in the 5th SAFF Women’s Championship to be held from 12th to 22nd March 2019 in Nepal. Sri Lanka will have to compete along with defending champions India and Maldives in Group “B” while the Group “A” consists of Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Women’s team was involved in their residential training under the Head Coach . Thilak Alponso

Before this tournament, Sri Lanka National Women’s Team toured Bahrain, December last year and played three friendly matches with Bahrain National team as a preparation for the SAFF Women’s Championship.

The team will be captained by Erandi Kumudumala Liyanage while Rushani Gunawardhana is the vice captain.

“I’m satisfied with the team because we had many training sessions and played few International friendly matches as well. Our main target is to enter the Semi Finals ” stated . Thilak Alponso the Head Coach of Women’s National Team

U23 Men’s National team will also tour Bahrain on 20th March to take part in the AFC U23 Championship 2020 – Qualifiers which will be held from 22nd to 26th of March 2019. A total of 44 countries across Asia have been drawn into eleven groups consisting of four teams. Sri Lanka will play along with Bahrain, Palestine & Bangladesh in qualifying round under Group “B”.

FFSL conducted trials in January to select players for U23 National Team and pool of 32 players continued their residential practices at Beddagana National Football Training Centre.

FFSL hopes to announce the squad who leave for AFC U23 Championship next week.

“The boys are not much experienced locally or internationally. But we have a talented and physically strong team. Though we conduct practices in a short period of time, we hope to give a good competition in this qualifying round and this international experience will be very useful for the upcoming South Asian Games (SAG) to be held in September this year” said . Nizam Packeer Ali The Head Coach of Men’s National Team.