Pakistani coach helped us by playing Kaleemullah in midfield, says Nepal’s Graham Roberts

Pakistani coach helped us by playing Kaleemullah in midfield, says Nepal’s Graham Roberts

Nepal boss, Graham Roberts, claims that by playing Kaleemullah in midfield Pakistan allowed his side the initiative and put them under unnecessary pressure.

The Green Shirts were only able to draw their SAFF Cup game against the Nepalese team and the Englishman attributes this to using Kaleemullah in the centre of the park.

Pakistan’s hopes of making it to the semi-finals of the SAFF Cup all but crashed after they were unable to find a winner against rivals, Nepal, at the Jawarlal Nehru stadium in Delhi.

Nothing much was expected of Zaviša Milosavljevi?’s men when they travelled to India but much improved displays against the likes of Maldives and Bangladesh, added to the hype surrounding the new tactician.

While the Green Kickers faced a tough task against The Gorkhalis, they matched every move of their rivals and even managed to respond with a goal after they went 1-0 down in the first-half.

However Pakistan were unable to add another to secure three points and as a result ended the 90 minutes with a third consecutive draw, albeit against a much more organized and higher ranked team.

After the match, Nepal coach, Graham Roberts reflected on the formation used by his former side and said that by playing KRL star Kaleemullah in midfield, they virtually surrendering the game even before kick-off.

 “I was shocked when I saw Kaleem Ullah play in the middle. He is a better centre-forward and when he won the penalty, I knew we had a problem.

“He is a strong lad, takes people on and had a couple of decent runs in the first half. Their coach (Zaviša Milosavljevic) helped me out.”

The former Tottenham star also added that having coached Pakistan, he knew what sort of threat they posed and insisted that they could cause damage to any side in the tournament.

“I coached them and I know them well. A lot of the people here have dismissed them saying Pakistan will finish fourth. They have good players,” Graham Roberts was quoted as saying.

Although Pakistan failed to win any of their matches, they also prevented defeat and that is a positive which the PFF can take forward and hopefully work on for the future.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=5600

Posted by Shahrukh Sohail on Dec 7 2011. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry