Is Nawayug really a one-season wonder?

Recently, on 13^th November 2020, Nepal lost by two goals to Bangladesh in football friendlies. This result was a disappointment to us and has hinted where the future of Nepali football is headed to. While it's not true that we don’t have any good players, it's true that our players can’t indeed stay consistent in their games. Many players have been phenomenal in one season, giving hopes to us supporters and getting very worse in another season, therefore letting us down.

Let's talk about one such player who was expected to be the next big thing in our football world but has failed to make any major headline since years. The person we’re talking about is Nawayug Shrestha. Nawayug last made into the major headlines in 2016 when he showed his true potential in Bangabandhu Gold cup.

 

Nawayug Shrestha holding a cup. Source: @nawayug18

 

Shrestha started playing football from an early age. His father, though by occupation was a teacher, had a keen interest in football and this influenced Nawayug. Born in Deumai Municipality of Nepal, Nawayug used to actively participate in domestic football tournaments. His incentive to be a better footballer helped him to improve his game by a huge margin. Playing as a striker, he won the school level U-14 championship in Kanchanpur for two years straight. His splendid style of playing and certitude of winning cups had raised eyebrows of many football enthusiasts.

After completing his 10^th standard, he came to the country’s capital: Kathmandu to start playing in C-division league. He played for clubs like Sherpa and Himalayan Sherpa but he didn’t find any success in both clubs. Disappointed, he decided to join the army. Related personnel in the army knew about his potential and gave him a chance to play in ‘Army Cup’ in Itahari from the Tribhuwan Army Club. He started his career in football properly from there and in the year 2011/12, he was the highest-scoring player in the National League after scoring 15 goals in a season.

This brilliance in the field helped him to get a place in the National squad of Nepal. He debuted his game as a national player on 31 August 2015. This game was played against India and ended as a draw. He started to contribute to Nepali football in Bangabandhu Gold Cup in the year 2016 where he scored his first hat-trick against the Maldives. He scored 3 hat-tricks within 2 months, something which is unknown in Nepali football. He didn’t stop there, he scored a hat-trick against Bhutan in the same year and later scored another hat-trick against the Maldives in the semifinal of the Bangabandhu Gold Cup. He ended the cup by scoring a final goal against Bahrain U-23 in the final and brought the cup home.

 

Nawayug Shrestha in Bangabandhu Cup, 2016   Source: rabinsxp

 

 

Nawayug is the fifth Nepali player to score a hattrick in international games. Before him, Ganesh Thapa (1987), Naresh Joshi (1999), Nirajan Rayemajhi (2002) and Bharat Khawas (2011) had scored a hattrick for Nepal in international games.

Nawayug meaning a new age was seen as a new hope and new yug for Nepali football. But his and Nepali teams’ failure to produce any magic in the field in recent years has killed our hopes of making Nepali football even greater. It won’t be an overstatement to call Nawayug a one-season wonder. But one thing we, as a supporter of Nepali football, can do is never lose hope and keep supporting our players to help bring their 100% in the field.