How does a country of 200 million people fail to win a single FIFA World cup qualification game since 1990? But Pakistan has achieved this dubious distinction. Moreover, if you look further than the country’s current FIFA ranking of 200, you will see glimpses of missed chance, dodgy coaching and sometimes truly bad luck that have prevented the Pakistani Shaheens from getting past even the first hurdle. Every four years, fans from 32 nations share the delight of seeing their teams at the FIFA World Cup. Hearts are broken, heroes are made and legends are born during the world’s greatest sporting event. Similarly, Pakistan is the only Asian country never to have won a FIFA World Cup, but the FIFA’S regulations, Asian teams get 4-5 slots at the World Cup, four of them being direct entries and another being an intercontinental play -off. Pakistan isn’t a name that comes to mind when talking about football – unless you talk about producing actual footballs rather than playing the sport. But the features countries such as Bhatan once the lowest ranked team in the world) Timor leste won matches against Mongolia, later docked by FIFA. Pakistan is the only one that hasn’t won a single FIFA world Cup. However, this is abysmal for a country where it can be argued that football is the number two sport and, in terms of following, the sport has grown in leaps and bounds over the last two decades, leading to 14.9 million people watching the 2014 FIFA world Cup ( Asia’s 8th largest country audience as per FIFA. Why Pakistan has underperformed, one must turn back the clock to 1989, when Pakistan played the FIFA World Cup qualifiers for the first time – taking on the South Yemen, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates. Thus, with the political problems in the sports administration looking to be resolved by the end of 2020, one can only hope that Pakistan is raring to go in 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Najeeb Sowali
Turbat
