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. 

MSH

Bangladeshi wicketkeeper-batter Mushfiqur Rahim is set to feature for Fortune Barishal in the forthcoming Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).

Mushfiqur had played for Sylhet Strikers in the last edition. His price was fixed at 80 lakhs in the players' draft according to the category. Which means he was in 'A' category.

The top category player will play along with other star players like Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, and Khaled Ahmed in Fortune Barishal.

Neymar said he was relishing “new challenges and opportunities in new places” after he joined Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal from Paris Saint-Germain on a two-year deal Tuesday, becoming the latest big name lured to the oil-rich Gulf state.

The Brazil forward, 31, ends a six-year stay in the French capital and follows in the footsteps of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Sadio Mane in swapping Europe for the Middle East.

“I have achieved a lot in Europe and enjoyed special times, but I have always wanted to be a global player and test myself with new challenges and opportunities in new places,” Neymar said in a statement from the Saudi Pro League.

“I want to write new sporting history, and the Saudi Pro League has tremendous energy and quality players at the moment,” he added.

Neymar was “in negotiations” on Sunday to become the latest football superstar to decamp for Saudi Arabia, leaving Paris Saint-Germain just as Kylian Mbappe was brought back in from the cold by the French champions.

A source close to PSG told AFP that 31-year-old Neymar “no longer figures in the club or manager’s plans” with the Brazilian immediately linked to Al-Hilal in the Gulf kingdom.

Another source in Saudi Arabia said that “direct negotiations” between Neymar’s agents and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) were ongoing.