Feature: Under-16 footballers dreaming big
For three Pakistan under-16 footballers – Zainul Abidin, Munir Aftab and Sanaullah – who travelled to Abu Dhabi and attended a month-long training camp at the Manchester United Soccer School, it’s the latter that sounds appealing.
Zain plays in Lasbela, Sanaullah in Malir and Aftab shows off his talent in the football-crazy area of Lyari, all in Karachi. However, the project of taking a group of boys to Abu Dhabi was not the only thing that brought them together. They share a common dream — international recognition for their football talent.
With the first step – and many more to come – giving them high-level training, the three have landed a contract with NBP that will fetch them Rs5,000 a month and plenty of on-field opportunities. But it’s not the money – or even education – that matters right now, as Zain put it.
“Training in Abu Dhabi with English coaches has changed my life forever,” Zain, who featured in the Pakistan U16 team that won the South Asian Championship in Nepal last year, told The Express Tribune. “It’s like I have a new lifestyle now. The biggest challenge was to communicate with coaches there. We would need a translator all the time during training. But football has a language of its own. Although I’m completing my matriculation, this trip has made me realise that I just want to play international football.”
On the other hand, Aftab, captain of the NBP and the U16 team, started playing when he was five but feels ‘life as a footballer has just begun’.
“I had to rethink my training and schedule that I used to follow here in Pakistan,” said Aftab. “I’ve noticed that we can never be the kind of players anywhere else. They eat and live in a healthier environment compared to us. There’s a big difference among us and this training project helped us realise that.”
Aftab, however, is at least aspiring to become the country’s first player to be signed by an English club.
Sanaullah, meanwhile, has a different perspective, his approach is practical and simple.
“I have a job because I play football — that’s all I could ask for,” he said. “Going to Abu Dhabi was a bonus for me. But to be honest, this is as far as I’ll be able to go. The best thing the tour has done for me is that it got us more recognition in Pakistan.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2012.
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why cant we hire the english coaches or send a batch of pakistani coaches to learn from them and come back and deliver
My sincere advice to these kids would be to stop day dreaming. There is no future of football in our country. If you guys really want to achieve something in football you need to get any European country nationality. There is slight possibility you guys can achieve your dreams. Otherwise start something else and stop wasting your and your parents time and money.
Great report Natasha. Its great to see our young boys having the ambition and desire to play abroad because of the obvious gulf in class there is and how poor our domestic football structure is.
However, the fact that they are now NBP players makes it a very risky precedent owing to fact that NBP's own coach Nasir Ismail is notorious for being hot-headed, and moody with his players. His coaching method is mediocre, and his mentality is more of a ruffian than a professional.
These boys should focus on getting out of Pakistan as quickly and as early as they can otherwise their development will stagnate fast if they remain stuck in this ridiculous local system that the PFF is too sluggish to even change.