The 3rd South Asian Women's Championships, hosted by the South Asian Football Federations (SAFF), were held in Pakistan and a pair of national teams led by Japanese head coaches, who were dispatched abroad as part of the Japan Football Association's developmental program, competed in it.

Though he had been given only a couple of months of coaching, Tsukitate Noriko led Bangladesh to a great outcome, remaining in the final four. Meanwhile, the Maldives women's national squad, led by Kawamoto Nahoko, were eliminated in the group stage but posted their first-ever victory. Both teams were in the same group and played against each other in the final game of it. Both head coaches praised their hard works each other.

Game results

The game results of both teams were:

Bangladesh Women’s National Team

Maldives Women’s National Team

Comments from dispatched coaches

TSUKITATE Norio, Head Coach (Bangladesh Women’s National Team)
It's been a short time, but I mainly instructed the adjustments of our positioning both offensively and defensively. Our players played purely and sincerely in the bad circumstances, but we came up short for our goal of advancing to the final and ended in the semifinals. I felt that we would need better sense of responsibility for their plays and mentality for winning, plus we'd need to establish individual tactics and disciplines as our issues.

KAWAMOTO Naoko, Head Coach (Maldives Women’s National Team)
All of our players are cheerful and have high motivation to get better, and they actively ask me questions even during trainings. And between the players, no matter what age they are, they were able to say anything they want to in terms of their plays, and I thought that was great. In our second group stage game against Afghanistan, we, as the Maldives women's national team, posted our first victory in an official game, and it was such a historic win. With the win, the players increased more confidence and it raised their motivation about the game, and they became less threatened about playing against stronger teams, and those were things they earned. I believe that it has boosted the interest for the women's football inside the Maldives.