Sports reporter //

The equation in front of the Bangladesh U-20 women’s team on the championship stage was very simple. The girls would have been champions if they had won the previous five matches and drawn against Nepal. There, the number ten of the Bangladesh age-based team, Mosammat Sagarika, scored a goal for Nepal. The red-green representatives became the champions of the U-20 women’s SAFF by beating Nepal 4-0. Sagarika scored all four goals.

The girls started the morning with the dream of becoming champions again in the SAFF tournament. But before the match started at the Kings Arena, their hearts were filled with sadness like everyone else. Before the match started, the news of the plane crash in Uttara reached every ear. Before the match started, the girls learned that 19 fresh lives had been lost during the one-minute silence before the match started. Most of them were children.

With that silence of grief, Sagarika celebrated one goal after another in her mission to bring home the age-based SAFF trophy for the second time in a row. The first of which came in the 7th minute of the match. Sagarika found a pass from her teammate’s defense. She beat Nepal goalkeeper Sujata Tamang and sent the ball into the net.

Perhaps it was because of the anger she had kept in her heart that Sagarika was irresistible. In this first meeting against Nepal, she was red-carded and left the field after getting involved in a scuffle. She was also given a three-match ban. She took the field in the title-deciding match and scored the second goal for herself and her team in the 50th minute.

Bangladesh, who took control of the match with Sagarika’s double goal, took a 3-0 lead in the 58th minute. Sagarika completed her hat-trick. She controlled the ball that was sent floating from the Bangladesh border with great skill. When the Nepal goalkeeper came forward, she chipped the ball into the net with brilliant skill. Sagarika, who got her second hat-trick in the tournament, scored her team’s and her fourth goal in the 76th minute.

Four teams, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, participated in this year’s U-20 Women’s Championship. India withdrew from the tournament at the last minute. The tournament was therefore organized in a round-robin group. Each team faced each other twice. In this tournament of six matches on the basis of points, Bangladeshi girls won all and became champions with 18 points. Nepal got 12 and Bhutan 6 points. Sri Lanka lost all six matches.

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