KARACHI: Pakistan football coach Zavisa Milosavljevic on Monday penalised the country’s leading striker Jadeed Khan Pathan and dropped him ahead of the national senior team’s tour of Singapore for joining the camp a bit late.
“Pathan will not go to Singapore as he has reported for the camp only last night, which is a violation of discipline,” Zavisa told ‘The News’.
The Chaman-based Pathan, one of the country’s finest strikers, had led Pakistan’s Olympic side in the Olympic Qualifiers against Malaysia last year. A couple of years back he had joined WAPDA but after playing for a season for them he decided to reconsider his decision and opted to play for his local club Afghan FC.
Zavisa is very serious about discipline and does not spare any player over disciplinary breaches. Pathan had a good chance of making the cut for the final squad as he has been in good form during the ongoing Premier League.
The coach will now have to drop two more boys from the remaining 17 home-based players in a couple of days as a 22-member team will be fielded in an international friendly against Singapore on November 19 in Singapore.
Seven foreign-based players including the country’s top defender Zeeshan Rehman, midfielder Adnan Ahmed, left-back Shabbir Khan, goalkeeper Yousuf Butt, defender Omar Malik and strikers Hasan Bashir and Mohammad Ali are also available for national duty and will join the team in Singapore.
During the tour, Pakistan will also face Singapore’s junior side in a warm-up game on November 16. The national team will leave for Singapore via Bangkok Wednesday (tomorrow) night.
From: The News