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SAMBA (53 goals) has surpassed Bala Devi (52 goals) as the highest-scoring women’s football player in SAFF.
SAMBA scored a brace against Lebanon in the semi-finals to cement her place in the record book.
She scored five goals against Iran at the WAFF Women’s Championship in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, bringing her total to 50 international goals.
She had previously scored one goal in the same event, when Nepal defeated Iran 4-1.
After scoring six goals in two matches, she became the first Nepali footballer to reach 50 international goals.
SAMBA | The Goal Machine
Sabitra Bhandari, dubbed the ‘Goal Machine’, scored her first international goal against Bhutan in the SAFF Women’s Championship in 2014.
She has scored in a variety of events, including the South Asian Games, Olympic qualifiers, Hero Women’s World Cup, Nadezda Gold Cup, and friendlies.
Sabitra scored 19 goals in four South Asian Championship tournaments. She also scored five goals at two South Asian Games. She scored four goals in two Olympic qualifying matches. Samba also scored four goals in the 2019 Hero Gold Cup in India and seven in the Nadezda Gold Cup in Kyrgyzstan.
Bhandari has five goals in international friendlies, two each against Malaysia and India, and one against Bangladesh. Notably, she has performed exceptionally well against select teams, netting nine goals against Bhutan and seven against the Maldives.
She has five hat tricks in her international career, the most recent coming against Iran. She had two against the Maldives, one each against Bhutan and Kyrgyzstan. During the SAFF Women’s Championship in India in 2016, she scored a double hat trick against Bhutan, giving her a total of five goals. Another hat trick came against Kyrgyzstan in the 2019 Nadezda Gold Cup, and she also had a hat trick against the Maldives at the 13th SAG Games in Pokhara that year.
