KARACHI: For former Pakistan striker Gohar Zaman, it was something he hadn’t seen before. Watching Pakistan football team’s fitness coach Jorge Castaneira work, he could see the difference.
“It was really high intensity,” Gohar, now the Pakistan under-23 team assistant coach, told Dawn from Phnom Penh, where the team open their AFC Under-23 Championship qualifying campaign on Wednesday. “… and Castaneira says it’s merely the start.”
With almost all of Pakistan’s squad bereft of domestic action due to years of crisis in the Pakistan Football Federation, Gohar believes that working on improving the fitness levels was the one aspect that could help Pakistan as they take on Iraq in their Group ‘G’ opener.
“Iraq only recently played friendly matches but we’ve had none,” he said, noting that it’s only been a few months since the PFF emerged out of its long normalisation phase.
“Without game action, players don’t really get a chance to test themselves so these high intensity training sessions were the only thing we could’ve done. Usually, we concede most of our goals in the initial stages and dying minutes [of the match]. So improving fitness will help the team.”
Head coach Nolberto Solano only arrived to take over the team at the end of last month with players shortlisted during a 12-day training camp.
“We’re not looking for excuses … we are ready for the tournament,” the Peruvian told a news conference on Tuesday with Pakistan also taking Cambodia and Oman in their later group games. The group winner advances to next year’s finals in Saudi Arabia.
“We are here to compete, to face the best players from Iraq, Cambodia and Oman. Like I said before, there are no easy games. We play against the best players, so we all here, to competition, to compete with everyone. All we want to do is fight to achieve what we want.”
Squad:
Goalkeepers: Adam Najeeb, Hassan Ali, Umair Arooj; Defenders: Haseeb Khan, Mohib Ullah, Muhammad Adeel, Ans Amin, Muhammad Haroon, Hamza Munir, Ahmed Salman, Junaid Shah, Abdul Rehman; Midfielders: Tufail Khan, Hayyaan Khattak, Muhammad Junaid, Ali Zafar, Adnan Justin; Forwards: Mckeal Abdullah, Umair Bahader, Furqan Umer, Ali Raza, Suleman Ali, Adeel Younas.
Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2025
