Can Pakistan really qualify for the AFC U-22 Championships?

The Green-Shirts face a tough qualification phase for the prestigious Asian tournament, with Newspakistan analyzing whether they have it in them to make it to the finals.

Young, budding footballers in the KPT Challenge Cup were enthusiastic in their displays and often looked to the stands, where the praying eyes of Zavisa Milosavljevic were continuously monitoring them.

 The Serbian tactician faces one of the toughest assignments of his coaching career- turn the Pakistan U-22 team into qualification contenders in a short span of time.

Although no Jose Mourinho by any standard, Zavisa has been a warm addition to the Pakistani coaching fraternity. And after his decent performance in the SAFF Cup, the pressure to deliver will be on the former Lesotho boss.

His task is made easier by the fact that Pakistan has always had the talent to succeed, but what undermines his regime is that there are no proper facilities to cater to their needs.

The likes of Kaleemullah, Husnain Abbas and Faisal Iqbal have established themselves with the senior squad and could be in line to feature for the U-22’s as well.

Furthermore, foreign players such as Ben Islam could also be in the mix, which makes the squad look good at least on paper.

Tariq Lutfi was calling the shots when the age-limit team played its last competitive game, but the trainer sent Danish shot-stopper Yousuf Butt packing and hardly made use of Irfan Khan’s talents.

However with Zavisa steering the helm, there is a sense of optimism that this could be the breakthrough year for the often under-performing Pakistan team. 

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=17442

Posted by Shahrukh Sohail on Mar 28 2012. 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