Wasted opportunity: Pakistan football's youth development crisis

Despite showcasing potential in international youth football tournaments, Pakistan's progress is consistently hindered by inadequate patronage and the absence of solid development strategies.

In 2011, Pakistan won the inaugural South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) U16 Championship by beating India 2-1 in the final in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, in 2018, Pakistan lost the SAFF U15 final against Bangladesh 3-2 in penalty shootout, which also took place in Kathmandu.

In 2023, Pakistan were beaten by Bangladesh 2-1 in the semi-finals of the SAFF U16 Championship in Thimphu, Bhutan.

Pakistan have also made a good start by beating Nepal 1-0 last Saturday in the SAFF U17 Championship, which is in progress in Thimphu.

On Monday (today) Pakistan face hosts Bhutan in their second match. Sri Lanka are the other remaining team in Pakistan’s group, who they will lock horns with on September 25.

Unlike India Pakistan lacks process

India have entered into the ongoing SAFF U17 Championship after having availed a training tour of Indonesia last month. This would help India in the AFC U17 Asian Cup Qualifiers to be held in Thailand next month.

Shockingly Pakistan’s young lot will miss the Asian Cup Qualifiers due to financial reasons.

India also underwent marathon training in Srinagar ahead of the event. Pakistan, meanwhile, hardly got a 12-day camp, which included only three days on the artificial turf.

Pakistan only fields its team in international events and little of no attention is given to proper grooming of the players.

For the last year’s SAFF U16 Championship, trials were conducted in 30 cities. As many as 3000 youngsters attended the trials and of them 150 were shortlisted. Regional camps in the federating units and Islamabad were held and of them a pool of 30 was formed and put in the national camp.

After losing the semi-final in the SAFF U16 Championship, the same lot did not get any exposure for almost a year until they were invited for the 12-day U17 camp earlier this month. Barring three players the rest of the lot is from the 30-member pool which had been formed last year.

“It would have been fine had the same lot which featured last year in the U16 SAFF Championship been given exposure,” Pakistan Under-17 team coach Sajjad Mehmood told Nukta from Thimphu.

“Lack of exposure is the major missing link. Look, India have given exposure to their U17 team playing here by sending them to Indonesia and they will be ready for the next month’s AFC U17 Asian Cup Qualifiers,” added Sajjad, under whose coaching Pakistan had lifted the title of the U16 SAFF Championship in 2011.

Sajjad also highlighted the need for regular camps bearing in mind the Los Angeles Olympic 2028 qualifiers.

“There is a need of regular camps and foreign training tours for such age-group teams which can give national senior team good players for the future,” he said.

“2028 Olympics Qualifiers are also ahead and we should properly look after our youth so that we could get good players for that,” Sajjad, also an AFC License A coach, further stated.