From quitting football to winning SAFF U16

Yearzan Begum, Bangladesh's saviour in the SAFF Under-16 Women's Championship final against India with three saves in the penalty shootout on Sunday, thought her football dreams had ended in 2018. 

Yearzan, a promising school-level goalkeeper had quit football around six years back, surrendering to the lack of opportunities in her Khoprabandi village in Panchagarh, giving way to the sneers and mocking that follows young girls in rural Bangladesh who dare to dream of making a career in football.

"After playing in the school tournament [Bangamata Gold Cup], I quit football in 2018 because there was no opportunity to play football under any coach in my village. The villagers also did not support me," Yearzan told the reporters at the BFF house on yesterday afternoon following the arrival of the champion Bangladesh team from Nepal.

Yearzan would not be guarding the Bangladesh post in the final had it not been for Abu Taleb Tuku, a local football coach in Panchagarh who persuaded her to return to football.

"Coach Abu Taleb Tuku invited me to play for his football academy after learning about me through my friends. He trained me and told me I could play in Dhaka and for the national football team if I work harder. I promised to do it," said Yearzan.

The young goalkeeper had to travel nearly 12 kilometres every day from her village to the town to train at Abu Taleb's academy. But growing up in a home where her father is battling an illness that keeps him from having a job and her mother runs the family working as a house help, Yearzan has lived a life of hardship. So, the distance from her home to the academy couldn't keep her from chasing her dreams.

Yearzan made one of her dreams come true in 2023, when she played for Siraj Smrity Academy in the Bangladesh Women's Football League. She later gave a trial at the U19 team but due to her young age was selected for the U16 team instead. In the final, Bangladesh came from a goal-down to take the match into the penalty shootout.

When asked what was running on her mind when she was walking towards the post after Sauravi Akanda Prity missed Bangladesh's first penalty, Yearzan said, "When the shot from Prity apu was stopped, the only thought in my mind was that how can I stop the shots of the Indian players. I was confident to save two to three shots and I did it."

"During the last shot, I was really confident to save it. But after I did it, I could not believe it myself," she added.
Yearzan also said that she had a shootout training before the final match and followed the instruction of the head coach Saiful Bari Titu.

"During the final training, the head coach told me to focus on the ball then I could choose the which side to go to save the ball."
Now, Yearzan will work towards fulfilling another dream of hers, playing for the Bangladesh women's team.