Nolberto Solano on What Awaits Pakistan Football After Maldives Tournament Win

Nolberto Solano recently led the Pakistan National Team to a tournament victory in the Maldives. In a recent interview with Denganche (YouTube channel), the head coach detailed his experience, the current reality of Pakistani football, and his long-term plans.

Speaking on the recent victory and his future goals, Solano stated:

"Well, we were invited here to this country, Maldives... Thank God we were able to pull the tournament off. The intention was to get together again with the national team players, especially with many guys who play outside the country. It is a process of this path to be able to prepare ourselves well this year because next year is when the official tournaments start... we have to be preparing for what is the Asian Cup, because here it is like the Copa America. The Asian Cup, you have to qualify for it because there are many Asian countries... I imagine the qualifiers for what will be Arabia in 2030 will start, right?"

Regarding the upcoming schedule following the Maldives tournament triumph, Solano noted:

"After this, we have to turn the page because a tournament is coming up for us now in September, October... something similar, but with national teams of perhaps a little more level... playing against Vietnam, Indonesia, playing with the Indian national team, which has a good national team. So we are going there little by little, building it from a very calm side because this is step by step, and hopefully, well, we can continue on this path."

On the Diaspora and the Roster

Regarding the lack of a local league and the necessity of relying on overseas players, he explained:

"Pakistan is a country where football still hasn't crossed over, it hasn't reached that competitive level. First of all, they don't have a professional league to start with. A bit of the fortune that Pakistan has is that it's a very big country of 250 million inhabitants, and many people who migrated... The same thing happened to Pakistan, which has the small universe of footballers who are like that from Pakistani parents, from grandparents who migrated to Europe and had children, and the children today play football. Obviously here we only have one footballer playing in a league, let's call it elite, right? Which is the Swedish league, this, which is the captain of my team, Abdullah. And then the rest play in the second division of Sweden, in the fifth, sixth division of England."

Solano emphasized that finding local talent is difficult without a proper system in place.

"They organize in a city called Karachi, which is a very big city, a tournament of the Challenge Cup. They play it in less than 10, 15 days, and from there I had to somewhat select some boys that I saw talent in and pull them out. But it's not the ideal, guys. You understand that it is not the ideal to be able to compete against them here in the Asian zone."

On the Long-Term Project

Solano discussed his discussions with the federation and the challenge of eventually facing bigger Asian nations:

"Knowing all this situation obviously President Guilani, when he contacts me it is a long-term project. There is no rush, there is no need, knowing how difficult it is because in Asia the countries that you obviously must know, the ones that are going to participate a lot in the World Cup, like Korea, like South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Iraq, they are very strong national teams. We will be there in the pot of teams... that we can still compete against like the one we've been in... Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, are countries where that is still the level where we are measuring ourselves."

On Life, Culture, and Security in Pakistan

Finally, Solano shared his thoughts on daily life in the country:

"Pakistan, we are neighbors with Afghanistan, neighbors with Iran. It is an almost 99% Muslim country. It is very quiet here, they enjoy cricket a lot, and then people go out a lot... alcohol does not exist here. So it is very quiet.

Here in the hotel where I live: rifles. Our poor 'huachimanes' [security guards] there in Peru walk around with this little wooden stick... here they walk around with a war caliber. But besides that, very peaceful, really guys, very peaceful.

You don't breathe football, I walk down the street, I think I look like one of them, they don't even notice. Now that we've won this... even the waiter where I live in the hotel didn't greet me, now they greet me."