The 2012 AFC U16 Championship qualification Group B finally drew to a close in Kuwait City today on 22 September 2011. The much anticipated Yemen vs Pakistan clash at the Mohammed al-Hamad Stadium proved to be a bitter pill to swallow for our young colts as Yemen rampaged to a decisive 4-0 victory to not only qualify for the main round but also top the group in the process.
Pakistan had required a win in this final match to confirm their place in the next round after a stunning 3-1 win over Afghanistan 2 days back on 20 Sept 2011, while Yemen only needed a draw. After some tense exchanges for much of the second half, Yemen was rewarded a penalty after a foul by Pak defender Rashid Noor in the box after 41 minutes and earning himself a yellow card in the process. Yemeni striker Mohammed Abdullah Al-Dahi stepped up and slotted home the spot kick past Pak goalkeeper Usman Khan to give his side a vital lead in the match.
Incidentally, this was Rashid’s second penalty-awarding foul in the tournament after conceding one in previous game against Afghanistan. Yemen went into the half time break with a confident 1-0 scoreline, forcing Pakistan to chase the game to score at least 2 goals to take their chance of qualification. But Yemen started the 2nd half strongly, and Abdulhakim Ahmed gave them an imposing 2-0 lead in 50th minute amid confusion and panic in the Pakistan camp.
Yemen then won another penalty after a foul by Pakistan captain Munir Aftab in 71st minute that Al-Dahi slotted home with ease to give Yemen a 3-0 lead that surely deflated Pakistani hearts and resolve. Amid the frustrations of going 3-0 down, Pak midfielder Muhammad Zeeshan was sent off for a straight red card in 75th minute as Pakistan’s day turned from bad to worse.
Yemen fully utilised their extra man advantage and soon made it 4-0 through Gehad Abdulrab Ahmed in 84th minute to decide the tie beyond 10 man Pakistan’s reach once and for all.
Yemen prevailed in the end, knocking Pakistan out in the process and earning 10 points from 5 games. Pakistan earned 6 points from the 4 games. In the other game of the day at the Ali Sabah al-Salem Stadium, hosts Kuwait from behind to defeat UAE 3-1 and grab the 2nd qualification spot in the group. The final match of the group saw Afghanistan trounce Maldives 9-0 to finish in 3rd place above UAE, Pakistan and Maldives.
Pakistan U16 coach Sajjad Mehmood will look back at this campaign as some solid experience for his young boys in playing with more well-established teams from the Middle East, as well as realising the weaknesses and problems in the side that need to be rectified if they are to improve as a unit in future competitions.
As of yet, the other teams that have also qualified for the main round of 2012 AFC U16 Championship from other groups are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Oman, 2010 winners Korea DPR, China, Japan, Korea Republic, Thailand, Australia, and Japan.
Group B final standings for AFC U16 Championship 2012 qualifiers
| Team | GP | W | D | L | GF | GA | +/- | Pts |
| YEMEN | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 4 | 9 | 10 |
| KUWAIT | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 4 | 8 | 10 |
| AFGHANISTAN | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| UNITED ARAB EMIRATES | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 8 |
| PAKISTAN | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 9 | -2 | 6 |
| MALDIVES | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 29 | -29 | 0 |
For God sack don’t spoil ur talent as we have got our self a good squad try to get some foreign professional coach to resolve Midfield and Defense problems what this Hassan Balouch can do beside , Adhay tum kya kerta hai maa sa gaya if some thing wrong happens and some thing good happens he will just say , Wah Ray jawan nothing more than that try to improve ur self mate .
As expected! Surely need a Foreign Coach….
Hassan Balouch was never a coach of this team even when it won! beating India that guy just got the spot light where as now when the team lost and didnt qualify his name is now mentioned ! Sajid Mehmood, and i totally agree to have a foreign coach or at least have someone sensible to be assistant!
from, (Muhammad Aslam)
My dear friends, there would be many espects other than a foreign coach, so i think we should highlited the other problems and things of our Pakistani football teams than a foreign coach.
I accept that a foreign coach is necessary for pakistani football teams, but my dear friends there are many other elements which should be addressed, pointed and rectified and we should also prominent and discuess them.
MUHAMMAD ASLAM (LAHORE)
can we not say ‘ground realities’ because they cant we worse than afghanistan that has war. no infrastructure and so on..we really need get out of this menta;lity and do something about it for the sake of these kids and their future..
I’m an Afghan, and I beleive that Pakistan is so obssesed with Cricket that football has a very small part of people’s interest……….
dear Faizi sb, I am sorry to say that Afghan u 16 team who represent Afghanistan in AFC u16 basically consist of foreign born boy and players and it is impossible for local boy to show such a nice performance, because the afghanistan dont have any football structure, and reality is that they arrange the afghan national players from other countries, because a large number of afghanis are living in europe and other countries and they are well sattled and playing games in europe, so thats why there performance was good. BUT IN PAKISTAN ALL THE PLAYERS ARE LOCAL AND PAKISTAN DONT HAVE GOOD RANKING IN FOOTBALL, EVEN THEN PAKISTAN PLAYED A GREAT GAMES AGAINST BIG ASIAN TEAMS.
actually the Afghanistan U16 team is almost entirely of players from Kabul clubs. All home-grown.
tkanks for ur response, you people are right. but other eliments which i will discuess tomorrow cannot be leave un-discuessed.
first let me clear one thing to my all friends and administration that i am in favour of foreign coaches. but not only coaches WE MUST HIGHLITED OTHER REQUIRED ELIMENTS
tkanks for ur response, you people are right. but other eliments which i will discuess tomorrow cannot be leave un-discuessed.
first let me clear one thing to my all friends and administration that i am in favour of foreign coaches. but not only coaches WE MUST HIGHLITED OTHER REQUIRED ELIMENTS
With respect to my all other friends who are uttering foreign coach & foreign coach, I just wish to show the comments of our cricket legent Imran Khan regarding Coaches. As last day I write that there are many other things important than a coach which we need to rectify and improve. in this reference i am showing you the comments of Cricketer Imran khan he says
“a lot of undue influence is attributed to coaches, but if a coach could be so influential, then minnows like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh would have been among the top teams just by hiring good coaches.
“If a coach was such a big thing then Zimbabwe or Bangladesh or one of the other weaker teams could just have a good coach and he could transform the team”
he also said,
“He gave the example of the Australian team under Steve Waugh and later Ricky Ponting, which is considered as one of the best in the cricket history. Imran shared that Australia did not become invincible because of their coach, in fact, the credit goes to the Aussie players and the domestic cricket structure.
“Coaches basically have very limited ability to help a team and I don’t understand this obsession with coaches, because basically Australia was not the best team because of their coach, they were the best team because they were a great team and they had a good domestic cricket structure which kept on throwing up good players and they had a good quality captain,”
andy flower k baray me kuch farmae gay ap?
you have just given example of a sport that can do without having a head coach..cricket although is a team sport it is very individual, you have to work on ur own bowling, batting and fielding etc and everybody is responsible for individual performance and skills which then benefits the team but football is a different game…the whole team needs to be pulling in one direction and playing with same strategy, tactics and plan…so our coaches plans of long ball have failed..we lost 1-0 vs kuwait in 2009 and 2-0 this time round..we can see which side has improved. we were exposed by the arab teams and we have to understand that these boys future is at stake if we dont do anything now..
Aslam sahib, cricket coaches have very little say in how a team runs. you talk about “ground realities” but forget that in football the coach is VERY important for the training, tactics, formations, selections, and in-game performance of a team