The opening match of the AFC President’s Cup group A between Khan Research Laboratories Pakistan and Erchim Football Club Mongolia remained goalless here at the Punjab Football Stadium on Tuesday night and with this draw both the teams earned a point each.
Now Pakistan will have to beat the third team of the Group A, Power Company, Chinese Taipei with big margin to move to the next stage of the qualifying round. The KRL Pakistan’s next match is scheduled to be played on May 12.
The match was not only the test of the former national coach Tariq Lutfi but was also an assessment of security situation, which has been the issue of reservation for foreign team’s visit to Pakistan. The security in certain ways proved quite tight with such an arrangement that even some of the accredited journalists and photographers were forced to pull out of match coverage. In other wards it was a nightmare for media assembled at the venue to cover the event with no proper facility to do their job. As of the approach of the Lutfi’s team, it remained the same as it has always produced a result of stalemate.
All the tall claims of Lutfi and his team of giving productive result dashed in when the team failed to get a single goal in the first half and there was hope of improved performance in the second session but the team went into much more defensive mode.
In front of a barely 200-crowd and double the security personnel, there were not much to be seen from the KRL players despite the fact that they had the ball possession for majority of the time and had shown aggressiveness for at least the first session. Even Pakistan under-22 boys who were among the people in the stands did not get enough knowledge to learn from their seniors playing the qualifying round match. For having more possession, there were more chances, but the final delivery in to the cage was not that perfect. In clear words the poor finishing remained the bane of the team that has ever been coached by Lutfi.
The prominent possessors of the ball were Kaleemullah, Rizwan Asif, Qasim and even captain Samar Ishaq who throttled the ball from right to left and had beaten Erchim defenders a couple of times. But the story remained the same. On two certain occasions when there was only the rival team’s goal-keeper left to be beaten, the Pakistan forwards were off target. The second half too saw the team got open house for nearly half a dozen times but the match remained goalless till the final whistle was blown and with this draw KRL missed an easy opportunity to stake its way into the AFC President’s Cup next stage. Tomorrow, (May 10) Erchim FC will take on Taiwan Power Company, Chinese Taipei.
