Dashrath Stadium getting ready for AFC Asian Cup 2023 Qualifiers
Photo: Kausal Adhikari
Nepal’s newly renovated stadium Dashrath stadium is all set to host its first fixtures featuring the Nepal national team. Nevertheless, the stadium has already hosted the South Asian Games (SAG) Football, which featured U23 teams. Nepal will be playing its home matches of AFC Asian Cup 2023 Qualifiers in the stadium.
The workers have been working in regular basis to keep the stadium at its best. Regular grass cutting, cleaning of the stadium is being done.
Nepal was due to host its first international match at Dashrath Stadium after around four years before covid-19 outbreak has the matches postponed.
Nepal has played one of the four match at neutral venue after Kuwait showed dissatisfaction over the stadium citing construction issues. Nepal played Kuwait in Bhutan, which Nepal lost by narrow margin of 0-1.
Dashrath Stadium was ready to host the remaining of the home matches but the FA had to suspend the qualifier matches following the direction of the AFC. Nepal was hosting Chinese Taipei and Australia in late March.
However, the AFC , in consultation with the FIFA has already announced the proposed dates for the suspended matches.
Matchdays 7 and 8 are now scheduled to take place on October 8 and 13, 2020 respectively while Matchdays 9 and 10 are due to kick off on November 12 and 17, 2020.
According to the decision, Nepali will now host Chinese Taipei on October 8 followed by welcoming the Australian team at Dashrath Stadium on October 13. Nepal will play their last match of the qualification campaign against Jordan on November 12. However, there is a fear of all those matches being held behind the closed doors if the corona virus is not under-controlled till then.
Nepal is currently at fourth position in five teams standing with three points which they earned from a 2-0 away win against Chinese Taipei. Nepal has lost four of their last five matches in the qualification campaign.
Nepal is all but out from the FIFA World Cup 2022 campaign but still stays in contention for the next round of AFC Asian Cup 2023 Qualification phase.
Dashrath Stadium getting ready for AFC Asian Cup 2023 Qualifiers (VIDEO)
