KARACHI: Pakistan Socca football team will leave for Lisbon, Portugal on September 21 to participate in the 32-team inaugural Socca Football World Cup.
The team is scheduled to leave for Dubai from Karachi in the afternoon on September 21 and from there the team would take a flight for Madrid, Spain. The team would then take a bus for Lisbon, the city which will be hosting all matches of the mega event.
According to team manager Zabe Khan, visa of all players and officials have arrived and the team has now been looking forward for a strong show in the tournament.
“Everything has been in place for team’s befitting participation in the inaugural Socca World Cup and we are hopeful for a forceful show in the tournament,” said Zabe Khan, who is a former K-Electric football team manager.
“The team has been training well and has also played a few practice games, where the team performed brilliantly,” Khan said. The team has gathered in Karachi and is now training at Karachi United Football Stadium.
However, Khan said that the event will overwhelmingly be participated by well-known football playing nations so winning matches would be a huge achievement for Pakistan.
Pakistan has been placed in Group ‘B’ along with tough football playing nations Spain, Russia and Moldova in 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.
This year in July, Leisure Leagues Pakistan (LLP) organized an eight-team LLP National Championship, with the winner of the tournament to get a chance to participate in Socca World Cup.
Lahore’s ten-member ICAW (I Can and Will) team won the small-sided tournament and qualified for the Socca World Cup. Another four players were later added to the squad – one player each from the other three semifinalist teams and one player from Pakistan team that featured in Street Child World Cup to strengthen the team as the tournament, to be held in Lisbon, allows teams to bring as much as 15 players.
In LLP National Championship, all of the eight teams, which qualified for the national championship, were champions of their respective cities either in Leisure Leagues Intra-City events or Leisure Leagues seasons.
The eight teams were equally divided into two groups – Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’. Group ‘A’ consisted of teams from Karachi, Quetta, Hyderabad and Mardan. Meanwhile, Group ‘B’ consisted of teams from Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad and Qila Saifullah. Each team played three matches in the group stage.
Pakistan Socca Football Squad: Afaq Ahmed, Hafiz Muhammad Waleed, Umer Javeed, Haider Ali, Saad Ali Khan, Zaid Mehmood, Aamir Iqbal Gondal, Abdul Hanan Javad, Zabi Ullah Warraich, Muhammad Zubair Adil (Lahore), Muhammad Alamgir (Peshawar), Muhammad Kashif (Quetta), Zafar Khan (Karachi), Sameer Ahmed (Street Child World Cup). Officials: Tariq Lutfi (Coach), Zabe Khan (Team Manager), Shehroze Rizvi (Assistant Manager), Mohammad Asif (Media Manager).
