DHAKA, March 10, 2024 (BSS) - The Bangladesh U-16 national women’s football team made the nation proud as they emerged champions in the SAFF U-16 Women’s Championship beating India by 3-2 goals in penalty shootout in the nail-biting final match held at ANFA Complex in Kathmandu, Nepal on Sunday. 

The match rolled into a tie breaker after the keenly contested regulation time ended in a 1-1 goal draw and eventually the fate of final match decided in tiebreaker. 

Bangladesh custodian Yearzan Begum stole the grand final show stopping three attempts of India after Bangladesh came from behind and forced the match into a tiebreaker. 

Earlier, Indian threatened early in the road  keeping coach Saiful Bari Titu’s team under pressure and eventually got the reap in the 4th minute taking the advantage of wrong passes and lack of coordination by Bangladesh’s players. 

Bangladesh players could not defend the ball properly which came from the mid field and Anuska Kumari took the ball and entered the box and sent the ball home with a perfect angular shot. 

Bangladesh had a good chance to equalize two minutes before the break as Saathi's well-judge corner from the close range was brilliantly blocked by India's goalkeeper Munni. 

How Bangladesh staged a brilliant fight back match in the 71st minute. Mariam Binte brought Bangladesh in the match with a header from the goal-mouth melee in the 71st minute capitalizing on a corner kick from substitute Ananna. 

The girls in red and green remained unbeaten throughout the tournament and went to the final with an all-win record including a 3-1 win over their final opponents in the round robin stage and won back the SAFF title WHICH they had first won in 2017. 

Bangladesh also blanked Nepal 2-0 in their opening round-robin stage match and defeated and thrashed Bhutan by 6-0 goals. 

Bangladesh and India were joint champions in the SAFF U-19 Championship held last month in Dhaka. In that match, the score line was 1-1 at the regulation time and in the tiebreaker both teams scored 11 goals.

 Following a bit of controversy, later both teams shared the SAFF title.