Whither Sri Lanka soccer

Sri Lanka soccer has hit an all-time low, losing all their three preliminary round matches of the 4th South Asian Tournament now in progress in Karachi, Pakistan.

It's not a matter of losing in a dignified manner, but losing disgracefully to some of the lesser-known teams like Maldives and Afghanistan.

What a shame it was to lose to a team like Afghanistan, which is not a force in Asian soccer. Having lost the opening game to the hosts Pakistan 0-1 and then to Maldives 0-2, it was nothing but disgrace that our soccerites earned when they lost to minnows Afghanistan 1-2.

Having lost the second game to Maldives 0-2, Sri Lanka coach Sampath Perera had reportedly told that he could not imagine what had happened and that his team 'did not play football'. Then, we cannot imagine what a ball game the Lankans had played against Afghanistan, which is more than 40 places behind Sri Lanka in the FIFA World rankings at 196th.

Afghanistan, as we all know, is a country, which is merely coming out of a bitter war and is just building a basic sports culture. They are ranked 42nd, at the very bottom of the Asian rankings while Sri Lanka is 29th. Losing to them in such a disgraceful manner, there should be something wrong in our team.

In fact, time has come to consider whether we should continue to play soccer. One can understand losing to Pakistan by a solitary goal. Hosts Pakistan played under advantageous home conditions before cheering local supporters. But certainly no excuses for defeats against underdogs Maldives and Afghanistan.

When we were brought down to earth 0-2 by Maldives and crashed out of the tournament, one thought at least Sri Lanka could earn a consolation win against Afghanistan. Even a win against Lilliputians Afghanistan would have had only an academic interest.

But it was a black Sunday for Sri Lanka soccer as our lads were humiliated, after making too many errors. We can not think of any future for Sri Lanka soccer after those three heavy defeats in-a-row.

When one talks about Sri Lanka soccer, we cant forget that man whose name was synonymous with the game here. He is none other that that able sports administrator Manilal Fernando, Sri Lanka's soccer ambassador. Unfortunately, our soccerrites have let him down badly.

Fernando has rendered yeomen service to Sri Lanka sports over the years. He has played a prominent role in the development of Sri Lanka soccer, but the achievements of our team are nowhere near his efforts to uplift the standard of the game here.

Senior Vice President of the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka, Fernando has been a leading figure in world soccer, holding key posts in the FIFA legal committee and a goal project officer of the world governing body. He also serves as a Vice President of the Asian Football Confederation. He is the man who took Sri Lanka soccer administration to the world.

But it was a pity that our soccer team has not been making any progress over the years. Fernando has made every possible effort through his good office to get international support to develop Sri Lanka soccer. He has been instrumental in getting down Brazilian coaches George and Marcos Ferreira and also numerous international competitions and training opportunities to our players as well as coaches.

All his efforts have gone down the drain due to our national team's disgraceful performance in Pakistan.

Even after losing to Pakistan in the first of the three Group 'A' first round games, we only had to win the two remaining matches against two comparatively weaker teams like Maldives and Afghanistan to make it to the semi finals.

But we even could not return home with a consolation win against Afghanistan, though that would not have had covered our sins. All what Sri Lanka team could do was to score their solitary goal of the tournament, that too against an extremely weak opponent. That too came midway in the second half in the last league match against Afghanistan, through substitute player G.P.C. 'Podda' Karunaratne, who replaced stand-in captain Isuru Perera from the 23rd minute of the second half.

Karunaratne prevented Sri Lanka ending the tournament without a single goal in three successive defeats. He scored that consolation goal 16 minutes after entering the field as a second half replacement. Its time to take a complete stock of what went wrong and make large scale changes in the team with a long-term plan.

We must groom a young team for the future.

A development pool too should be given continuous training, along with the main national pool. Then we would have enough options in facing a situation like this in future.