By Shahrukh Sohail, Chief Editor, Islamabad
The Shaheens need a win today in order to keep their qualifying hopes alive and will hope to increase their goal-difference as well.
Form Guide:
Pakistan:
Although the Green Shirts weren’t able to overcome Tajikistan in their opening game, they managed to hold out well against the Central-Asian giants and were only breached towards the end in injury time. Zavisa Milosavljević will be going all out for a win today and will turn towards the likes of Adnan Ahmed and Muhammad Ali to lead them to victory.
Kyrgyzstan:
The hosts overcame Macau with a narrow 1-0 score line and will be aiming for a repeat of that performance today. Owing to the home support and blisteringly cold weather, Kyrgyz could be held as favorites, but their current FIFA ranking threatens to take away that notion.
Team News:
Pakistan:
The most notable for Zavisa’s troop is Hassan Bashir, who is currently nursing a neck strain and according to sources in the team, could potentially sit this one out. If the Dane is on the bench, then all the focus on finding the back of the net will be on Muhammad Ali, who is yet to score for the Green Kickers after making his debut last year.
Jaffar Khan on the other hand is a confirmed absentee, but Pakistan will be in great hands, as Yousuf Butt put in a brilliant display last time out and was crowned the man-of-the-match against Tajikistan.
Midfield will be Zavisa’s prime concern and the Serb will hope that Adnan and Yasir Afridi can marshal the middle of the park with certainty, otherwise a positive result may evade the team again.
While everybody is backing the squad, former captain Essa Khan is less than optimistic and claims that it will be difficult to emerge with three points.
“We’ll be playing under a lot of pressure. We need to put that defeat out of our mind and look to win this one,” Khan told The Express Tribune.
Kyrgyzstan:
David Tetteh scored the all-important winner for his country last time out and will be looking for a repeat of that situation, unless the Pakistani defence can hold him and his International teammates right from the start.
Author Prediction:
Pakistan 1-0 Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan scores in the first minute :(
plz update us time by time.
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Half time score
Kyrgyzstan1-0Pakistan
Half time score – Kyrgyzstan1-0 Pakistan
What’s the score?
Pak lost 1-0
Our soccer woes continue! Zavisa Milosavljevic must be fired and replaced with Salman Sharida! What happened to the much talked about foreign based players in the team? It is very shameful that we have lost to a team which is ranked far below to us in the FIFA rankings. PFF has to raise a strong team if it wants to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and for that it must focus on improving the standard of the game at the grassroots level, including a revamp of the PPFL. A league along the lines of the IPL is imperative in order to raise a strong team, which could compete with the very best. The government needs to allocate funds reserved for other sports to the PFF, since soccer is the most important sport in the world, and spending large sums of money on lesser sports is useless.
Sorry for pakistan… try again..
How much will the Pakistani fans have to wait… Like literally how much?????!!! Even teams like Afghanistan & Bangladesh have improved their football now,,,,
As I mentioned, Pakistan need to harvest footballing
passion among masses at least there should be 5-8 crore must follow
football. See the options how to do that. Play the sensitive card for
the improvement game. Play with Indian in neutral venues with Gulf
regions