It's been a nearly two weeks since I've last posted my article on this platform. I was busy while preparing for the local football tournament organized in my village area. On the holy festival of Dashain, Every year a football tournament known as Mahabharat Gold Cup is organized by locals at the top of border point of Kavre and Sindhuli District of Nepal. This year also on the occasion of Dashain, the fourth Edison of Mahabharat gold cup organized from 20 October to 24 October. The tournament is called Mahabharat because the place where the tournament is organized is situated at Mahabharat Range. The ground is located at Ghyangdanda, Kavre district above 2300 meter from the sea level in Nepal.
A total of 16 local teams participated in this edition of Mahabharat gold cup. Since there is a lack of electricity in the village area, I was unable to capture all the moments throughout the competition. The area of the ground is smaller in comparison to the standard size of the football ground. Due to this reason, the game is played to 9A side with 16 players in the provisional squad. It took 4 days to complete the competition. The tournament played in the knockout fashion. Since there were a total of 16 teams participated, the teams are separated into two groups A and B. Each pole consist of the 8 teams, and the winner of both poles played the final of the competition.
Previously the winner was only awarded the medal and trophy but in this year the winner is awarded 40K Nepalese Rupee along with Medals and Trophy. The weather out there was very difficult to predict after 12 pm, the weather constantly changes there from clear sunny to whole ground cover with fog and vice versa. It only took a few minutes to change the weather out there. Due to the rapid weather changes sometimes it affects on players and referees vision during the game. All the games are played between 10 am to 4 pm, We can see some pics that were taken during the foggy condition.
I played from my own village team Ghyangdanda Youth Club situated at Kavre, Nepal. This is my third tournament out there. In our first match, we beat the Okhreni Youth Club in a penalty shoot-out. Okhreni is the only team that represented the Sindhuli district. After the match ended with the 0-0 draw in a regular time the match went to the penalty shoot-out. In the penalty shoot-out, we won the match by 3-1, the three out of 4 penalty takers of Okhreni Youth Club failed to score the goals while our all three players including me score the goal to secure the first win. In a quarter-final, we met another team from Ghyangdanda known as Mahakali Youth Club. Previously only one team from Ghyangdanda took participated in the competition due to some political interfere we have to make our own separate team to play in the tournament.
We were so unlucky in our second match, we lost the match in sudden death at penalty shoot-out and knocked out from the tournament. After both teams failed to score the goal and the game went to the penalty shootout. From both teams, three of five shooters missed scoring the goals, Me and my friend Prakash (second from left in front row) scored the goal for our team. We missed the two chance to win the match in the shootout, our penalty taker captain Sunil and Dhiraj (First from right in back row) both missed the second last and last penalty which leads the penalty shoot-out to sudden death. In sudden death, our player Buddhi(First from left in back row) missed the penalty and we lost the match. Our journey stopped in the quarter-final stage of the competition.
In the semi-final, Mahakali Youth Club faced the heaviest defeat of the competition and lost the match by an 8-0 to the Karambadanda Boys Football Club, In other Semi-final organizer team Bhadaure Youth Club stunned the competition's new team Walting Football Club to reach the final, Bhadaure Youth Club win the match with narrow scoreline of 1-0. In a final match, Karambadanda Boys again repeated the same scoreline of their semi-final match to win the competition very easily, they won the final against Bhadaure Youth Club by 8-0 to win the tournament. In third place game, Walting Football Cclub beat Mahakali Youth Club by 2-0 to secure the third position. The winning team awarded the cash prize of 40K Nepalese Rupee, the second team was awarded to 20K and third place Walting Football Club got the 10K Nepalese Rupee.
Some extra photos
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Timelapse of Cloud Motion near the football ground
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpUIQrBg5aL/?taken-by=lama.10bishnu
First of all, I have not thought about writing about this blog cause it's just a small local tournament. I just want to share this post because I want more and more people to get the opportunity to play in this magical field. I have to admit that this is the best football pitch I've ever played because due to the weather condition out there I don't feel tired throughout the whole game. If the Nepal government spent some money to maintain the ground It will be one of the best places to play the football not only in Nepal but also in the World. The mountain range view from the ground, the unpredictable weather condition is all I loved about the ground. I've placed the location about this Football ground in Google Maps also, now you can check about the location of this ground also in Google Map.
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