footballPakistan website stated that Afghanistan dominated but were not clinical on goal... so not sure if your comment of Pakistan dominating is correct. Overall the playing surface, tv coverage was poor. both teams were poor, and both teams come qualification play like this, I am afraid that they will both lose by big margins. goodluck to Pakistan in the preliminaries, I hope they qualify to the group stage
Yeah, I understand that both teams didn't perform to the best of there abilities, disappointing to be honest, I still have got to see the highlights but it seems to me that we only managed to 'scrape' a win, if so Pakistan have got to improve,a scrappy win against Afghanistan team full of new players is nothing to get happy about yet. Though both teams were missing key players, I hope we improve for our next fixtures which are more important and I hope it is taken more seriously
Seems like Rasool is on his way to Qatar Al-Arabi, one of the big clubs in Qatar, nice to see players from back home moving abroad, especially to a team with players from Europe and South America.
With the win over Afghanistan, Pakistan will move ahead of India in the fifa rankings! if only the PFF scheduled a friendly match with any nations prior to January rankings and potentially could of avoided playing a play-off to qualify for the group stage..
Lol, it's still good to rise 15 places up though, can't wait till the Yemen game, we defiently going to raise our place in the table
Saadullah player for SSGU in the 2nd division of Pakistani football has moved to the Maldives club BG Sports, it's nice to see that despite playing in the second tier of Pakistan football players are still getting recognised from abroad, it's also good that he get's any sort of playing time before the World Cup qualifiers to.
if a full team of Pakistan come to play against Yemen and stay focussed for 90 minutes, I feel that can snatch a win over the 2 legs. Key is the away game in Yemen (neutral venue). Keep the scoring low and focus on defending! a 0-0 or a 0-1 to go back to Lahore for the 2nd match will be a great achievement. Remember, Yemen are a strong side, they are quite competitive against their fellow West Asian nations..
I agree, but I think however Yemen will be a good test, they are currently sitting 179 in FIFA ranking, but I still think it'll be a hard game to be able to beat them lol, most of there recent fixtures have been losses but they come against big teams and the losses aren't half bad
Yemen are down the fifa rankings becuase they play against higher WAFF nations, and only lose marginally or gain a draw. You wont see Yemen losing to Maldives or India. They are a strong side and unfortunately will be tough to beat.
What a week in Pakistani football. -Kaleem is currently trialing at second division Iceland club -Mohammed Adil is also going for a trial in the netherlands in May, two Dordoi leaving for leagues in Europe is a big sign up But negatives this week: -Shamlan will be leaving his post at the end of his contract because “I won’t be extending my contract when it ends in July,” Shamlan told Dawn on Tuesday after the senior team and the U-23 side played a friendly game following the postponement of their 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Yemen. With the sun setting at the Punjab Stadium, Shamlan said that he was “tired of the constant pressure and criticism” as the sun sets on his Pakistan career. “I’m tired of working in Pakistan because there is no vision at all,” he said. “There is only talk of high achievements which can never be fulfilled because there aren’t any solid steps being taken to achieve those goals. “They [PFF] talk about qualifying for the FIFA World Cup in 2022 but that dream cannot be realized because there isn’t anything being done to promote the standard of local football. “Football will only improve here if the standard of the Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL) improves, but I haven’t seen any improvement in it. Very disheartening to hear, but it's honest words, how are we dreaming off ever qualifying for a world cup when we can't even promote local talent huh, the country is dire in football, I know talent is there, there is talent all over Pakistan 100% but there is hardly any investment in Pakistani football, and a general lack of interest is holding us miles back.
Pakistan crash out of World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers. on a national level, only Saff Cup 2015 and 2017 is on the playing cards for Pakistan. heavy investment in needed in the youth.
Basically this, it's nice to see Pakistan hold Yemen to a draw but it's like the team got no ambition, even in 20 years time we'll be stuck like this, no one seems to care about investing in football despite huge amounts of talent in the country. It's disappointing to see that we won't be making the cut for Asian Qualifier too, it'd be nice to put up against stronger teams from the same regions. This where Afghanistan will make it, the people there are interested in sports, and there seems to be a HUGE surge of talent coming through in Europe, the people there like football much, I dont know, but there's miles ahead in footballing terms against us, the only thing we look forward is cricket, something that we even we are turning bad at.
It's sad to see Pakistan football growing so slowly. Unlike India who just qualified for the second round! The grass is always greener on the other side. PS: No hard feelings.
Perhaps not in Pakistan but in Europe Pakistanis are doing well None taken, just looking at how many players of Pakistani origins are making it in Europe, I mean common it's not like the First British Asian in the EPL was a Pakistani, not like the first South Asian in the Manchester United academy was also an ethnic Pakistan. Not like the two Nabi brothers are West Brom lol or Easah Suleiman, Captained England U-17, Aston Villa and there was talk of Bayern Munich wanting him. Hmmmm, no hard feelings lol.
I just feel angry when people of South Asian descent or any weak football country achieve great success in other countries. We have the talent and easily the population, but we're crap when it comes to training and developing. Vikash Dhorasoo, Michael Chopra and who could forget Neil Taylor! If any of our national teams could get one decent world class player, South Asian football would become a wwhole lot interesting. By the way, that list of your made a bit jealous.
What does anyone think the the apparent crisis in Pakistan football at the moment? We have a project they received money for but appears officials kept? Will we ever have any development in Pakistani football at this rate?
http://www.footballpakistan.com/2015/07/hayat-blames-govt-for-abrupt-saff-u-16-withdrawal-dawn/ Hayat blames govt for abrupt SAFF U-16 withdrawal [Dawn] By Umaid Wasim KARACHI: With his future as Pakistan’s football chief hanging in the balance, Faisal Saleh Hayat blamed the government for the country’s non-participation in next month’s SAFF U-16 Championship. The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has been mired in controversy for the last few months with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) also starting its probe into financial irregularities during Hayat’s 12 years as president. During the past months, Hayat has been suspended as president through an Extraordinary Congress held by a splinter group of the PFF — a decision which he refuses to accept. That splinter group then took over the PFF headquarters — a step Hayat terms as taken by the backing of the government — and followed a highly divisive presidential election on June 30. Hayat was up against PFF senior vice-president Zahir Ali Shah in the elections with the PFF splinter group, led by interim chief Arshad Khan Lodhi, and Hayat’s PFF both announcing separate venues for the polls. It led to an intervention by the Lahore High Court (LHC) which ordered a stay on the elections but Hayat went ahead with the elections which saw him re-elected. It ignited further controversy with Hayat being served a contempt notice. Hayat and two other PFF officials — secretary Col Lodhi and finance committee chairman Asif Ali — were summoned by the FIA on Monday but they did not turn up as they questioned its jurisdiction. In the ensuing fracas, Hayat’s PFF has claimed his re-election has been accorded by the Executive Committee of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) with Asia’s football governing body having also sent an observer to the elections held in Changla Gali. An AFC spokesperson told Dawn on Wednesday that it will “look into it” when questioned about the ExCo claim. The AFC had earlier told Dawn that elections have to be held “under accordance of FIFA/AFC statutes and national law”. During that period, Zahir has written to FIFA, informing the world body that the step to suspend Hayat through an Extraordinary Congress and the takeover of the PFF House was all done constitutionally as he asked it to evaluate the situation. Hayat, however, directly blamed the government. “The young national footballers who had prepared very well for the event are very disappointed,” he said in a news release announcing that Pakistan will be unable to participate in SAFF U-16 Championship in Bangladesh from August 7-15. “The government and its backed intruders into football house are not realising the level of damage they have done to the football of Pakistan. They are bringing a very bad name to the country.” Lodhi, meanwhile, said: “We have no record with us, the occupiers of PFF House have savagely damaged or wasted all football related valuable record of PFF maintained in years. Those occupying the PFF House are responsible for this situation and so is the government and Sports Board Punjab (SBP) for supporting and favouring them illegally, unethically, undemocratically and unconstitutionally.” Hayat’s PFF also announced the postponement of the inaugural Women’s League and Inter-club Championships but Col Farasat Ali Shah — the acting secretary of the group controlling the PFF House — said that they would try to ensure Pakistan’s participation in SAFF U-16 Championship. “I’ve been told by some well-placed sources that FIFA is likely to discuss the Pakistan situation during its Extraordinary Executive Committee meeting on July 20,” Farasat told Dawn on Wednesday. “We’ve done everything according to the PFF constitution so we’re not worried. “If something is decided by then, we’ll do our level best to send a team for the SAFF U-16 Championship.” FIFA did not immediately respond to Dawn when asked about the situation.
KARACHI: Mohammad Shamlan on Thursday announced that he had quit as Pakistan football team coach after the expiry of his contract and signed a one-year deal with Bahrain’s Riffa Sports Club. http://www.footballpakistan.com/2015/07/satisfied-shamlan-says-goodbye-to-pakistan-the-news/
Interesting thread, I've read all of it. I first took an interest in Pakistani football about 2 years ago. It's widely known that Pakistani's are big fans of cricket, so I wondered if there was any interest in football, so I did a bit of Googling, and surprise surprise, it turns out that they have a national premier league! When I did my research, I was thinking of club football, a Pakistani national team didn't even cross my mind; most of this thread is about the Pakistani national team. Someone said at the beginning of the thread that 'Pakistan was learning to run before it could walk.' Yes, I agree with that statement, and I can't see them qualifying for the World Cup in 2022, or even 2034! It seems that the Pakistani Premier League was set up to appease FIFA, or some other governing body, to curry favour with whoever in order to play in the World Cup Finals. Pakistani football seems to be run from top to bottom by government officials. Teams representing the Pakistani Premier League aren't football clubs, but teams from the Army, Air Force, Navy (until they got relegated), Electricity Board, the National Airline etc! I have just read an interesting article on Dreams.com, via a link posted on here (which I'll post again once I've finished writing) and having read that, I learned that there was plenty of football interest from the people of Pakistan, mostly from them tuning into European or South American matches via their televisions. I also learnt that there was plenty of national pride (no surprise) and there'd be plenty of interest in a successful Pakistani national team. But what about civic pride? I didn't detect any of that, but I'm sure it must be there. Football was built on civic pride What the PPL needs is entrepreneurs, not government officials. What's needed are people to set up football clubs that represent communities, not the Army, or the Electricity Board. People are proud of where they come from in Pakistan too, aren't they (their towns and cities I mean, not nationality)? What's stifling the entrepreneurs? Since it's about 900 miles from Islamabad to Karachi, two regionalized leagues are necessary, maybe three. Yes, three regionalized leagues of about 12 teams each to begin with, followed by championship deciders at the end of the league season. With plenty of Pakistani interest in football and a population of about 170 million people, then surely newly formed football clubs can attract a large enough following to get themselves established and at least go semi professional Forget international football, you need to start from the ground upwards http://www.dawn.com/news/1116746
Absolutely agree with @Lynn_M I think most have been saying this for years, it's happened elsewhere in Asia, look at Thailand for example and they still have Police/Army/Nay teams but the league is thriving. Yes, Pakistan has to think out of the box. It simply doesn't have to be home/away, it can be regionlised with championship playoffs at the end. There's obviously passion there, but who wants to rush from work to watch KRL against KESC when you can get a bite to eat before getting home to watch Man Utd against Chelsea on TV for example. There's a lot the administrators can do. They could even take the games around the country, one weekend a set of fixtures back to back in Islamabad, the following weekend the same in Karachi. Fans pay once to watch 3 games in one day in one stadium, the next day the same happens again. All starts on the Friday night with a fan funfare or whatever to get the fans or general public in the vicinity and then they might just watch a game with the kids...who knows. I don't, but I can throw a few ideas about!