Sri Lanka become the bunnies of Asian Football
Despite Sri Lanka's disastrous outing at the recently concluded AFC Under (U)-23 Qualification Round Football To u r nament held in Bahrain, the coaching staff is still echoing the usual mantra of, "We gained a lot of experience", rather than fact- finding or exploring a constructive remedy. The Sri Lanka U- 23 side, slotted in Gro u p 'B', alongside Palestine, hosts Bahrain and Bangladesh, conceded 20 goals, while failing to score even 1 goal, in the 3 matches they played.
Nizam Packeer Ali, who was appointed 13 months ago by the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL), continues to repeat the same sentiments he voiced, when he met the local journalists for the first time in public, while taking the easy way out.
"The finger should not be pointed at me, the players or the administration. Now we know our level. I will analyse the tournament and hand over a report to the FFSL,” said National Coach Packeer Ali, after the recent Bahrain bashing.
The vision of the FFSL, its national selectors and the coaching staff is unclear, if they are at least committed to produce results at international level. For the outing in Bahrain, Sri Lanka took a bunch of newcomers into the national stream, after training for less than a month.
"I am not ready to give excuses for the defeats. We practised for 29 days and had a host of inexperienced players who made a lot of mistakes during the games," the coach added, while willingly seeing the brighter end of the debacle.
"This is a good experience to face future tournaments. We lost 0-9 to Palestine in the first match, our players made a lot of mistakes. We
missed a lot of passes and the result was a staggering defeat. We lost 0-9 to Bahrain too. Our players turned in a good performance, but there were too many penalties against us. We were in good form for the game against Bangladesh, but we made a few mistakes and the result was a 0- 2 defeat," stated Packeer Ali, giving his analytical explanation.
However, the recent tours by national Football teams at regional tournaments, have not been that overwhelming, and have begged more questions than answers. The latest addition to the list comes in Bahrain, which is the worst defeat Sri Lanka has suffered since the last SAFF Football Championships in Bangladesh in 2018, where the senior national team was at the receiving end. To take matters in a different direction, Packeer Ali did not forget to feature the height factor of the Sri Lankan players.
"Taking stock of the 3 games, our players lacked height. Players of other countries were 6- footers or above".
Whether they be excuses or explanations, they come as premeditated statements from the point of view of the local Football followers, who have been in the loop for decades.
The FFSL could take a few tips from Sri Lanka Netball Coach Thilaka Jinadasa, who fought for ' exposure tours' and ' friendly games', before guiding her team to claim the Asian Netball Championship. Football, as their affluent brothers, Cricket, tend to do experiments at top events, which eventually end up in humiliation, if they backfire. And backfiring has been happening regularly in Football in recent years.
However the FFSL administration too has shown their displeasure at the humiliating defeats in a sudden turn of events. Earlier they backed their coaching staff but this time, the FFSL vehemently has called a spade, a spade.
"The Head Coach, Mr. Packeer Ali cannot runaway from this debacle. He is answerable to the whole nation, not only the FFSL and the followers of the game. There were chances to cut down the goal margins against Palestine and Bahrain, as they are teams stronger than any others in the region, but losing 0-2 to Bangladesh is unacceptable. It should have been at least a 0-0 draw. Mr. Packeer Ali has
shown good improvement since he took over in March 2018, but this is an unexpected drawback. There will be a definite and immediate postmortem on this," furious on the outcomes, 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 have been conducted just as fill-ins, in recent years, raising more questions on the real purpose of these competitions. When domestic competitions are in place to pick potential national players, Packeer Ali and his coaching team opted to roam the four corners of the country to scout for talent.
"I cannot promise the stars and the moon, but I can assure you that our goal is to draw matches at the upcoming tournaments. Firstly we have to come out of the losing trend, start drawing, and my plan is to build up a strong Sri Lanka team by 2022, where we can easily hope of winning games," were the first few lines Packeer Ali spoke to local pressmen 12 months ago.
However, when Pakeer Ali took over as Head Coach, Sri Lanka was placed 200 in FIFA World Rankings, and after 1 year, the placing has grown. As at Friday, Sri Lanka is placed 201 in FIFA World Rankings.
Nevertheless, while Sri Lanka is still exploring ways to come out of the hole they are in, Bahrain comfortably qualified for the final round of the AFC U-23 Championship, to be held in January 2020 in Thailand, as one of the 16 Asian teams to qualify. Sri Lanka will probably continue to do more experiments and give exposure to their players at its next outing at the South Asian Games Football Tournament to be held in December in Kathmandu, Nepal.