Sports

Football: ‘We don’t need foreign players’

Football coach confident about local atheletes.

Natasha Raheel February 01, 2011

KARACHI: Pakistan football coach Tariq Lutfi said that he preferred local talent over the foreign players who have started to join the training camp for the Pakistan’s Olympic qualifier against Malaysia on February 27.

The first phase of the national training camp started with 46 players on January 15 with Lutfi, who replaced Akhtar Mohiuddin as a head coach of the under-21 squad. Now, the team begins the second phase in Thailand where they will play three warm-up matches as well as an under-23 friendly from February 6.

The final list of 22 players will be shortlisted on February 5 from a pool that includes UK-based defender Irfan Khan who joined the camp last week and Danish goal-keeper Yousuf Butt who will report to Lutfi on February 3.

“I have the authority to select the players for the squad,” Lutfi told The Express Tribune. “Just because these players are coming from European countries doesn’t mean that I’ll choose them.

“I haven’t seen Yousuf yet and Irfan is struggling with his physical fitness, so I can’t say that they are in or very impressive on the field.

“We don’t need players from Europe, we have excellent goal-keepers and strikers in Pakistan, and they just need grooming,” said Lutfi.

However, Lutfi feels that the training in Thailand will be a good chance to test the temperament of the team and hopes his side gains confidence before the matches against Malaysia.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2011.

COMMENTS (2)

Ali Ahsan | 13 years ago | Reply With all due respect, while I question the accuracy of the statements attributed to Tariq Lutfi, but even the most basic of football follower knows why even the European lower leagues are far better than our crash-bang dhakka-start domestic football where most of the players are usually ambition-less govt. department employees and the local coaching is crude and lacks professionalism..

M. H. Hussain | 13 years ago | Reply I bet our Lutfi sahib is unaware of statistics. Maybe he even doesn't know what's happening in leagues across the globe. Rejecting foreign Pakistanis outrightly??? That's outrageous!! The whole footballing world is taking advantage of players thriving in forieng leagues. Take Spain, the World Champions, for example. Spain has one of the most competitive and entertaining leagues in the world with plenty of homegrown talent. Despite this fact, they choose to include three players from foreign leagues in their 23 men squad for 2010 FIFA worldcup. Runner up Netherlands is even a better example. They had only 9 out of 23 players playing in dutch league, rest of them were picked from foreign leagues. Giving chance to foriegn Pakistanis will surely benefit the rest of the team...

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