Asian Games

Sri Lanka end up the bunnies of Asian Football

Despite Sri Lanka’s disastrous trip on the lately concluded AFC Under (U)-23, Qualification Round Football Tournament held in Bahrain, the coaching workforce remains echoing the usual mantra of, “We received plenty of revel in,” instead of fact-locating or exploring a constructive treatment. The Sri Lanka U-23 aspect, slotted in Group ‘B’, alongside Palestine, hosts Bahrain, and Bangladesh, conceded 20 goals while failing to score even 1 goal inside the 3 matches they played.

Nizam Packeer Ali, who was appointed thirteen months in the past by using the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL), maintains to repeat the equal sentiments he voiced when he met the local journalists for the first time in public, at the same time as taking the clean way out. “The finger should now not be pointed at me, the gamers, or the management. Now we realize our level. I will analyze the match and give up a report to the FFSL,” said National Coach Packeer Ali after the recent Bahrain bashing. The imagination and prescient of the FFSL, its countrywide selectors, and the coaching staff is uncertain if they’re as a minimum committed to producing effects at a worldwide stage. For the outing in Bahrain, Sri Lanka took a gaggle of freshmen into the national flow after education for less than a month.

“I am now not equipped to offer excuses for the defeats. We practiced for 29 days and had a bunch of green gamers who made quite a few mistakes at some point of the video games,” the train delivered, at the same time as willingly seeing the brighter stop of the debacle. “This is good enjoy to face future tournaments. We lost zero-nine to Palestine in the first in shape; our players made several mistakes. We neglected a lot of passes, and the result was a staggering defeat. We misplaced 0-9 to Bahrain too. Our gamers turned in an excellent overall performance, but there have been too many consequences in opposition to us. We had been in true form for the game in opposition to Bangladesh. However, we made a few errors, and the end result became a 0-2 defeat,” stated Packeer Ali, giving his analytical rationalization.

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However, the recent tours by way of countrywide Football groups at local tournaments, have no longer been that overwhelming, and feature begged more questions than solutions. The state-of-the-art addition to the list is available in Bahrain, which is the worst defeat Sri Lanka has suffered because of closing the SAFF Football Championships in Bangladesh in 2018. The senior countrywide group becomes at the receiving give up. To take topics on a exceptional path, Packer Ali did not forget to characteristic the peak issue of the Sri Lankan gamers. “Taking inventory of the 3 video games, our gamers lacked top. Players of different international locations have been 6-footers or above”. Whether they be excuses or factors, they come as premeditated statements from the point of view of the neighborhood Football fans, who’ve been within the loop for many years.
The FFSL may want to take a few pointers from Sri Lanka Netball Coach Thilaka Jinadasa, who fought for ‘publicity excursions’ and ‘friendly video games, before guiding her group to claim the Asian Netball Championship. Football, as their affluent brothers, Cricket, generally tend to do experiments at pinnacle activities, which in the end end up in humiliation if they backfire. And backfiring has been taking place regularly in Football in current years.

However the FFSL administration too has shown their displeasure at the humiliating defeats in a unexpected turn of activities. Earlier they sponsored their coaching staff however this time, the FFSL vehemently has referred to as a spade, a spade. “The Head Coach, Mr. Packeer Ali, can not run away from this debacle. He is answerable to the complete country, not the best of the FFSL and the followers of the sport. There were chances to cut down the goal margins in opposition to Palestine and Bahrain. They may be stronger than any others in the place; however, dropping 0-2 to Bangladesh is unacceptable. It ought to had been at the least a 0-0 draw. Mr. Packeer Ali has proven accurate improvement because he took over in March 2018, but this is a surprising drawback. There can be a precise and on the spot postmortem on this,” livid on the results, FFSL President Anura de Silva and Secretary Jaswar Umar, stated. The few recognised domestic Football tournaments, namely the Dialog Champions League and the FA Cup had been conducted simply as fill-ins, in latest years, raising extra questions about the real motive of these competitions. When home competitions are in the region to select ability countrywide gamers, Packer Ali and his education team opted to roam the 4 corners of the united states to scout for talent.

“I can’t promise the celebs and the moon; however, I can assure you that our aim is to attract fits at the approaching tournaments. Firstly we should come out of the losing fashion, start drawing, and my plan is to build up a sturdy Sri Lanka team by 2022, where we can effortlessly desire of triumphing video games,” had been the first few lines Packeer Ali spoke to neighborhood pressmen three hundred and sixty-five days ago.
However, whilst Pakeer Ali took over as Head Coach, Sri Lanka became placed 2 hundred in FIFA World Rankings, and after 1 year, the putting has grown. As of Friday, Sri Lanka is positioned 201 in FIFA World Rankings. Nevertheless, at the same time as Sri Lanka continues to be exploring ways to pop out of the hole they’re in, Bahrain easily qualified for the very last spherical of the AFC U-23 Championship, to be held in January 2020 in Thailand, as one of the sixteen Asian groups to qualify. Sri Lanka will likely retain to do more experiments and give publicity to its gamers at its subsequent trip on the South Asian Games Football Tournament to be held in December in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Randy Montgomery

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