Karachi:Pakistan’s renowned football coach Tariq Lutfi believes that it must be a dream come true for Pakistan football players, who will be representing Pakistan in the inaugural edition of Socca World Cup in Lisbon, Portugal next month.
Tariq Lutfi is considered as the best football coach in Pakistan. Lutfi has coached both men and women’s national team in the past. He has also coached departmental teams and is currently coaching SSGC at the moment.
Lutfi said that Leisure Leagues Pakistan (LLP) must be appreciated for making all this possible for a Pakistan team to feature in a football World Cup event, which begins September 23.
LLP has appointed Tariq Lutfi to coach Pakistan Socca squad during the last couple of weeks of the team’s training. Lutfi will also accompany the team to Lisbon during the 32-team mega event.
Lutfi also praised LLP for spreading the network to organize small-sided football throughout the country, which in the beginning seemed a difficult task to achieve.
“Trunkwala Group (that owns LLP) spread a brilliant network for small-sided football in the country. It also promised to bring international football idols to Pakistan, which was nothing less than a dream for Pakistan football fans. Last year they brought big names of the football world like Ronaldinho and Giggs and they also played a couple of matches here. It had been a great inspiration youngsters and persons who play football,” Lutfi said.
He added that operating in such details has been difficult for Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) at this level due to lack of funds.
“But LLP managed to spread the network and provided platform for persons who want to play football even in remote areas of the country. And now Leisure Leagues has organized a National Championship and a national team has also been developed, which will be playing a (small-sided) football World Cup,” Lutfi lauded.
Pakistan has been placed in Group ‘B’ along with Spain and Russia. The fourth team in the group is Moldova. A total of 32 teams from across the globe will be seen in action during the Six-a-Side tournament.
The 32 teams have been divided into eight groups of four teams each. After playing matches against one another in the group, two top teams from each group will qualify for last-16 knockout round. From here, teams would progress to quarterfinals, semifinals and eventually final, which will be played on September 29.
Lutfi said that Leisure Leagues national champion Lahore, which won the National Championship and would play first small-sided World Cup next month.
“All these things are happening in quick successions, which few people believed. Participation of the Lahore team in the first World Cup is nothing less than a dream. This will certainly induce great passion among youngsters and football players in the country,” he said. He praised LLP for all this and hoped that LLP will progress by leaps and bounds.
He further said that football is played among eleven players but small sided football provides basics to the players and all renowned coaches in the world, who prepare eleven-a-side team, uses small-sided football format for training purpose in order to empower players with better skills.
“I believe all players playing in Leisure Leagues events will be able to develop their skills and techniques and these pool of players, produced by Leisure Leagues can go up to play Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) national events and play for bigger eleven-a-side teams. The skills the players learnt in Leisure Leagues will certainly help them perform well in eleven-a-side format as well,” Lutfi said.
Meanwhile, he said that Pakistan will be playing against top class football playing nations would face Spain, Russia and Moldova in group matches in Socca World Cup.
“It is difficult to say how we will perform in Lisbon since our players have played club level football and they have won club level national tournament and predicting anything is not possible,” he said.
Lahore Champions ICAW (I Can and Will) won Leisure Leagues National Championship to qualify for the Socca World. Another four players added to the squad – one player each from the other three semi-finalist teams and one player from Pakistan team that featured in Street Child World Cup.
Lutfi said that we need to understand that Pakistan will be playing in such a mega World Cup for the very first time against renowned football names of the world like Spain and Russia, which is in itself a very big honor and achievement for us.
“When we will go for the second time in the World Cup, we will go to play competitive games. After evaluating things in the second stage, in the third phase, when Pakistan will go to feature in the third edition of the World Cup, we will be able to play for the best results possible,” he said.
However, he added that the players have been training well and they have improved their fitness and hoped that the team performs well in the inaugural event as well.