Pakistan has changed its stance on inclusion of foreign based players into the national team and have allowed its UK based players to join the National Team camp in Karachi.
Atif Bashir and Adnan Ahmed attended their 1st of the camp for the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship 2011 that starts on December 2 in New Delhi. The team is scheduled to leave for new Delhi on 30th of November which would mean that they will have only 3 days to train together with the local players.
Tariq Lutfi, the former coach of Pakistan, had decided against the last-minute inclusion of foreign based players citing the reason that due to lack of practicing together, these players do not develop good understanding with the local players which harms the game that the team is able to produce.
But the new Serbian coach Milosavljevic thinks otherwise. The addition of those extra players might give him additional pool to choose players from and try the best possible combination in his 1st international assignment with the Pakistani national side.
Pakistan has been placed in a tough group alongside Bangladesh, Maldives and Nepal and the Serbian coach does not want to take chances and field the best team at hand. An official said to a Pakistani daily,
It’s understandable since we have a tough group in the championship. We will face Bangladesh in our first match and they won the tournament in 2003, so I think we should select the best team.
The tournament starts on 2nd of December and all the matches will be telecast live on Ten Action Plus channel.
CLICK HERE to watch LIVE STREAM of SAFF CHAMPIONSHIP 2011
[…] Milosavljevic took no time to call the UK-based Pakistani players Atif Bashir and Adnan Ahmed into the squad and their experience can give them a cutting edge. They […]