The ANFA U-16 Youth League, which featured 11 teams, kicked off on December 27 last year with two fixtures—Church Boys United vs Sankata FC and Himalayan Sherpa Club vs Machhindra FC—at the Satdobato-based ANFA Complex.

Played across a double round-robin format, the League, with 110 games between the teams, concluded on Tuesday with an intense clash between two departmental sides—Nepal Police Club (NPC) and Armed Police Force (APF) Club.

APF, leading 5-0 by the 68th minute, faced a stunning NPC comeback. In the 72nd minute, Utsab Thapa's goalline handball led to his red card and a penalty, which Sudarshan Khatri converted for his first league goal. Dindar Lama and Rijan Raj Gautam further cut the deficit to 5-3 by the 89th minute. In four minutes of stoppage time, APF’s keeper conceded another penalty, allowing Gautam to make it 5-4. Despite the late surge, NPC couldn't find the equaliser.

Nevertheless, the win and loss in the 110th game did not matter much for both teams as their position remained unchanged. Second in the table, APF reached 48 points while the NPC stayed at seventh with 25 points.

Friends’ Club Kopundole (FCK), who won against Three Star Club in the 109th game on Monday, finished third with 42 points; APF had 45 points with their 20th game of the League remaining with NPC.

Meanwhile, NPC, with 25 points, could not have affected sixth-placed Macchindra FC (29 points) even with an unprecedented comeback win or a tie against APF.

Nevertheless, APF had space for regrets as they fell only two points short of Church Boys United (CBU), the League’s winner. CBU won the title on March 8, defeating FC Khumaltar 2-0 and accumulating 50 points in total. Had CBU lost or tied against Khumaltar, APF would have a shot for the title with a win over NPC on March 11; by the end of the League, APF were 17 goals ahead in goal difference than title-winners CBU.

CBU played the League opener against Sankata, won it 2-1 and went on to win 16 of their 20 games, drawing and losing twice each. CBU’s two draws came with fifth- and fourth-placed Three Star and Sankata while second- and third-placed APF and FCK handed the losses, respectively.

League showered with goals

A total of 433 goals were scored throughout the tournament, i.e. 3.936 goals per game on average. There were eight goalless games while total goals reached the double figures in six games; Tribhuvan Army Club (TAC), one of the three departmental sides, was on the receiving end in four of those occasions.

Nevertheless, last-positioned TAC, with one draw and 19 losses in 20 games, was not on the wrong side in the biggest loss of the League. The biggest loss was suffered by ninth-placed Himalayan Sherpa Club (HSC) when APF kept a clean sheet while scoring 16 goals on March 1.

APF’s skipper Tenzing Sherpa, who scored eight goals in the 16-0 win over HSC, went on to bag the award for the Highest Scorer. Sherpa scored 29 goals throughout the tournament.

Furthermore, Sherpa scored against all 10 opponents at least once. He scored in both games against three teams—Khumaltar, Army and Machhindra.

Sherpa’s teammate Abinash Waiba is in the list of leading goal scorers. Waiba, with 21 goals, was the only other player to cross the 20-goal mark in the League. CBU’s Sanil Magar (17 goals) and NPC’s Samir Rai (15 goals) followed them.

Sherpa, who was scoring mostly one goal per game, netted a double hat-trick against TAC on February 26. In the next game against HSC, Sherpa scored 8. He also scored a hat-trick in the 6-0 win over Machhindra in APF’s 19th game before scoring two goals in the 5-4 win over NPC on March 11. Waiba also scored two goals in the win.

Nevertheless, despite scoring the most number of goals in the League, APF lost the League by two points. CBU’s squad was waiting for the APF vs NPC game on Tuesday to end as quickly as possible since they wanted to return and celebrate with the League trophy soon.

CBU, after a wait of three days, received the League trophy and a winning cash prize of Rs100,000 while APF settled with the runners-up trophy and a cash prize of Rs50,000.

Similarly, CBU’s Pascal Basnet was adjudged as the Best Goalkeeper while Three Star’s Shrijan Shrestha bagged the ‘Most Valuable Player’ award. Shrestha was one of the nine players to score goals in double figures; with two hat-tricks, Shrestha had 12 goals in the League.

Nonetheless, TAC, despite finishing last with one point from 20 games, did not return empty-handed, as they were feted with the ‘Fair Play Team’ award.