Football: Serb coach on lookout for foreign players

Proposes programme to nurture football talent in Pakistan.

KARACHI: Pakistan football coach Zavisa Milosavljevic has proposed an under-11 programme to better equip the young talent before they don the national colours, while also setting his sights on two international friendlies as the team prepares for the AFC Challenge Cup in March.

In order to arrange the friendlies, the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has sent invitations to UAE and Thailand, while Milosavljevic has also decided to hunt players from England and Denmark to play for Pakistan.

The Serb coach said the two matches, scheduled for February 29 and March 4, will help Pakistan before the Challenge Cup assignment. “I will start the national camp on February 15,” Milosavljevic told The Express Tribune. “I’m calling foreign players and choosing the best Pakistan players to form a good team.

“But I’ll rely more on the foreign players since they understand the sport better. But this doesn’t mean that players here are not good enough. They were late groomers and I feel in modern-day football, players are groomed at the age of seven and eight. So foreign players is a temporary fix.”

To remedy the problem, Milosavljevic has proposed holding camps for juniors and asked the PFF to develop a programme to nurture the young talent. Milosavljevic added that only foreign players completely dedicated to Pakistan’s cause will be invited.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2012.