FFSL
Begins with the year 2019, both Sri Lanka National Football teams of Men’s and Women’s are set to fly for International tournaments. Football Federation of Sri Lanka is set to send away their Men’s U 23 and Women’s National Team for the international tours to Bahrain and Nepal respectively.
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” is consisted of Hosting Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Women’s team was involved in their residential training under the Head Coach Mr. Thilak Alponsu over few months and 20 players of squad will leave to the tournament.
Before this tournament, Sri Lanka National Women’s Team toured to Bahrain, December last year and played 3 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 over few months and played few International friendly matches as well. Our main target is to enter in to the Semi Finals and we will make further plans in accordance” stated Mr. Thilak Alponsu the Head Coach of Women’s National Team
U23 Men’s National team will also tour to 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 consist of four teams. Sri Lanka will play along with Bahrain, Palestine & Bangladesh in qualifiers round under the 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. Existing pool is consisted of 5 players from Senior National pool and other players represent different parts of Sri Lanka especially North & East provinces.
FFSL hopes to announce the squad who leave for AFC U23 Championship within 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 qualifiers round and this international experience will be very useful for the upcoming South Asian Games (SAG) to be held in September this year” said Mr. Nizam Packeer Ali The Head Coach of Men’s National Team.
