ISLAMABAD, : Quake affected children showed determination to take part not only in sports activities but in normal life as well which is encouraging sign," says FIFA Coaching Instructor Holger Obermann (Germany) while talking to media men at PFF Secretariat, Punjab Stadium, Ferozpur Road, Lahore Monday.
Praising interest shown by children of earthquake stricken areas, Holger said that boys from this area tough and hard and a regular attention to these youth players could make a Pakistani world class player.
Holger said that I am impress with the response of boys belonging from the earthquake affected areas wherein most of the cases children have lost their parents or their families and want to re-start their normal life.
Holger stated his first visit to the Pakistani earthquake affected area as morale boosting activity for the players and said that boys are trained to improve their skill especially movement with the ball and dribbling. For the power, he said, appropriate diet has been recommended to the players to use as the game needs power and best food to enhance the out-built of the players.
Holger praised the efforts of Pakistan Football Federation (PFF)’s President Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat for the promotion of soccer in Pakistan and congratulated him for gold-medal triumph in South Asian Games last month."
It is not easy to win gold in Games of South Asian territory and Pakistan put up heroic display at Colombo although at they were on brink of elimination at one time, Holger added.
Pakistanis were the best among eight in physical fitness as well as on the air. I have personal experience of tackling the South Asian event as myself was head coach of Afghanistan in 5th SAFF Championship 2003 at Bangladesh,’’ added by the 64-year-old German Football Association (DFB) foreign expert Holger who has spent 31 globetrotting years nurturing the game.
It may be recalled that Holger arrived at Lahore on 28 August and ran Football Coaching Clinic at Earthquake Areas - Muzaffarabad, Abbottabad, Islamabad and Peshawar from 30 August to 12 September. He also conducted Clinics at Lahore’s WAPDA Sports Complex, Chungi Amar Siddhu, from 14-18 September.
FIFA Assistant Development Officer Mohsen Gilani and PFF Co-ordinator Tariq Lufti, National Women coach, were among three-person delegation at the Clinics.
He added the training and coaching program, sponsored by FIFA, has been divided in two age groups of U14 and U16 and separate arrangements have been made for the girls.
German coach Holger, who is specialized in football coaching especially after the disasters occurred anywhere in the world and had visited Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Afghanistan and African countries under the FIFA Special ’Hope’ program. FIFA team will again visit to Pakistan in March 2007.
Meanwhile, Mohsen said FIFA has already allocated handsome funds for the reconstruction of football Stadiums at the earthquake affected areas which were damaged due to 8th October disaster.
PFF Co-ordinator Tariq Lufti said that under the FIFA Hope Program, efforts are being done to bring out the peoples and boys for the shock which they had faced due to country’s worst ever disaster and had praised the efforts of FIFA, AFC and PFF in this regard. | 
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