Dressed for the occasion

National lady footballers in matching saris for the post South Asian Games award ceremony. Very charming.

Photo taken from Republica

Football in our genes

Kansas City Wizards and Indian striker Sunil Chhetri says his Nepali mother taught him everything he knows about football.

Nepal Basketball Association logo

The NeBA logo (see background) is pretty nifty. One of the better sport association logos.

Photo taken from Nepalisports.com

Professionalism

Winning and losing is often separated by the smallest of margins. A few inches, a moment of concentration or an inspired coaching decision could mean the difference between riding inside a mini-bus back to your village or on top of one in a victory parade around the streets of Kathmandu.

Those small margins come from getting the edge over your opponent - technical edge, psychological edge, physical edge,  tactical edge, organizational edge and the intangibles edge. While our teams and athletes might be technically on par with their opponents, in the other areas we lag far behind, thus we keep struggling to get over the hump.

That's where professionalism comes in. Professionalism isn't just about making a good living off of sports, it is about getting the edge. Professionalism is when:

• a coach is more interested in a coaching manual than a tracksuit
• a player is spending more time in the gym than on Facebook
• a referee understand that knowing how to communicate is as important as knowing the rules
• the government realizes that you help athletes to succeed and not after they have succeeded
• sports officials go abroad not to shop for their relatives but to shop for new ideas to develop their sport back home
• a club is just as focused on developing its administrative team as its playing team
• fans understand that you encourage your players and not rag on them

That's what professionalism is about and that's what will give players and teams the edge to get over the hump.

Looking for passionate Nepali sports bloggers

Lots of Nepali sports related blogs have been sprouting all over the World Wide Web recently. While it is great to see so many people giving their paanch paisa on Nepali sports, for readers sorting through the various blogs can be tougher than walking around Ason on a Friday evening. 

In light of this, Rangsala Blog is now open to anyone who is passionate and opinionated about Nepali sports. We want to be the home of Nepal's top sports bloggers. If you have something important to say about Nepali sports, say it here! We're looking for strong opinions, original content and a different take on Nepali sports.

If you're interested in writing on Rangasala Blog please contact us at rangasala(at)gmail.com

Nepali cricket - still a long way to go

Once again Nepali cricket failed to produce when it mattered most. Sure an optimist can always find silver linings - be it the fact we reached the finals of the ACC Cup, won the WCL Division 5, or the brilliant performances of Nischal Pandey in the the ACC Under 16 Elite Cup - but in plain terms we are nowhere near where we should be given our geography and the massive popularity of cricket in the country.

For the countries we compete against in the lower rungs of international cricket, the sport is merely a recreational opportunity for immigrants and expats. A majority of their population do not even know that the sport exists and you would be hard pressed to find any significant local media coverage for it.

We should not be competitive with the likes of USA, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong - we should be destroying them. Yes, some of these teams are packed with non-nationals, but if we want to play against Afridi and Dhoni we need to easily be able to depose their little brothers.  With the resources Nepali cricket has access to (and I'm not simply talking about money), we should at least be an ODI nation and in the same company with Ireland, Canada, Netherlands, Scotland, Kenya and Afghanistan.

What is ailing Nepali cricket then? (And virtually every other sport in the country for that matter). PROFESSIONALISM! More on that in my next blog post in a weeks time. Until then Happy New Year to all of you.

Competence at sports associations

If you meet a Nepali sports official, a standard line you will most likely hear from them is how no one with a shred of competence is willing to work in the sports sector. Thus as a great sacrifice to sport and country they must continue to serve as the guardians of their sport to protect it from leaches and infidels.

Sukuti! (Guess that would be the equivalent to ‘Bologna’ in Nepali)

Nepal has plenty of passionate and talented people who would be more than enthusiastic to help uplift sports in the country. If you don’t know any, then you probably have spent half your life inside the corner MoMo shop and the other half at Ranjana Cinema Hall. Basically you're living in the dark.

The dirty little secret is sports officials are terrified to bring in competent people into their associations. They know it may expose their own incompetence and could cause cracks in their well guarded fiefdoms. Therefore creating a dysfunctional sports organization suits them perfect, because that is exactly what will drive away the overachievers and protect their lands from invasion.