Nizam Packeer Ali – Cometh the hour, cometh the man!
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Football circles are abuzz that FFSL has offered Nizam Packeer Ali a contract to take over the National Football Team as Head Coach. Nizam, Rumy, Ronny, call him what you like, but he is indeed a popular choice for the daunting job of reviving the fortunes of our National Football Team. One social media intoned, Packeer Ali to the rescue, and that is putting it mildly!So who is this much heralded savior of Sri Lanka Football? Packeer Ali hails from the central heartland of Matale and we are told, played school football at Zahira College in Matale. He first represented the National Team in 1976 under the Captaincy of Sumith Walpola who incidentally is in charge of current U19 national squads. Having moved to Colombo, Packeer Ali played for York FC in the halcyon days of football in Sri Lanka and went on to captain the National Team in the 80’s before leaving to play professional football in Bangladesh. After his playing career, most of it with Abahani FC, Packeer Ali gained his AFC ‘B’ Coaching License in 2002 and the ‘A’ License in 2006. He went on to undertake coaching assignments in the Maldives until he returned to Sri Lanka to take up the short-lived position of FFSL Technical Director. One of Sri Lanka’s lesser known but stylish and brilliant strikers, a dribbler par excellence, Yogendran Cruze in a FB post has this to say about Nizam, “I am proud of you having being selected to be the National Coach of Sri Lanka. A great all round player of yesteryear; happy to have played alongside you! May all God’s blessings shower upon you!
Packeer Ali will shortly pick his coaching team and one key name that is being bandied around is a old war horse, Damodaran Chandrasiri, the former National Football Goalkeeper, and one-time National Coach and acting. Technical Director. Backing them up is another important appointment; that of former AFC Match Commissioner, the experienced Sunil Senaweera who has probably seen more than a hundred high quality football matches especially in this part of the world. Kudos also to the FFSL President who has put his differences behind him to appoint probably the best talent Sri Lanka has to offer in football coaching by supporting the contender for his Presidency in 2015, for this top job. A former National Football Captain and a past FFSL CEO, Anura De Silva obviously knows who is best for this tough job.
Having said all that, no football fan in this Fair Isle must think that this is a plum job. While it smacks of the frills of office and a worthy package by local standards, the incumbent is thrown into the cauldron of fiery competition even in this corner of the world. Assuming our first task is to lock horns with teams in the South Asian region, countries like Bangladesh and the Maldives bring a strong national backing to the game with state and commercial sponsorship, as does the smaller football playing nations like Nepal and Bhutan who run well funded academies for their national squads. India the big brother is of course progressing in leaps and bounds, so while we cannot yet come to grips with the big guns like Japan, Korea, and the football centric Middle East countries, considerable development of the game among our immediate neighbours cannot be disregarded, if we are to make the grade and start to climb the greasy pole from the abysmal FIFA rating of # 200!
The job is also tough for a variety of other reasons. One overwhelming concern is the decadence of national team players. Ask top coaches in the country and they will tell you that discipline is a thing of the past and the pride of playing for their country, now a very marginal consideration. Management of national squads has been second rate with most positions given away as favours than on merit. We have seen team managers engaged in shopping jaunts than focusing on the task at hand; hilarious that even national players have to be hounded from shopping malls just before a game is to begin. Some others could hardly submit a match report or make a technical analysis. And so the whole national unit is debased; it is hope more than intent that has become the bedrock of international encounters!
It is unlikely that the maestro Packeer Ali will tolerate such an attitude in the senior national pools. He himself is a fitness freak and if nothing else, the boys are going to be run off their feet to stay in the pools that will be shortly assembled. The process we learn is that the national pool drawn from the twenty DCL Clubs will contribute about 5 select players each, from whom the final national team will emerge! Not a bad approach if it will take into account outstanding talent that will be outside this dragnet! Once the final squad of about 25 players is brought into boot camp, the coaching team must transform this basic team composition into a homogenous fighting squad in time for the SAAF Championship in Bangladesh come September 2018; the first acid test that the new National Coach will face in just 07 strenuous months.
Nizam Packeer Ali has promised to do his utmost and we should believe him, given his time tested passion for the game. The FFSL administration and the Director of the National Team must give him every encouragement and the resources that are sorely needed to make this transformation. We have seen glimpses of this example in the national cricket management with the advent of National Cricket Coach Hathurusinghe. Hathu knew the Bangla conditions well and so does Nizam! Zora, his beloved wife in a FB comment says, “Take this great and experienced coach. Let him raise this game from its pitiful state; it’s not how you won or lost, but how you played the game, that matters, she exults”. Sri Lanka Football needs that spirit very badly if it is to rise from the ashes of disgraceful defeats and unending scandals. The time & the man have come.