Who Does Afghanistan’s Soccer Team Represent Now?

BELEK, Turkey — Anoush Dastgir may possibly be the hardest-operating male in soccer, but by Saturday, his occupation experienced taken a toll.

Dastgir, the mentor of Afghanistan’s men’s nationwide group, was sitting in an empty cafe at the resort exactly where he and his group have been planning for an exhibition match towards Indonesia. It was 11 p.m., and Dastgir was battling what sounded like a heavy cold. Which was not astonishing, specified he now had a dozen work to do.

Coaching a nationwide soccer staff is hard sufficient any place, but coaching Afghanistan has extensive had unique difficulties.

It is 1 of the world’s poorest nations and a position where by civil war and Taliban rule when stored the national staff from taking part in a video game for almost two many years. The region is considered so unsafe, in fact, that FIFA, soccer’s international governing overall body, has prolonged banned its teams from playing at household. Most of the time, that rarely mattered: Afghanistan is rated 152nd in the entire world. And it has never ever competent for a big event.

Still, instances obtained even more difficult above the summer, when the Taliban swept back again into Kabul, the Afghan governing administration collapsed and its president, Ashraf Ghani — not to mention tens of thousands of his countrymen and women — fled the nation.

Dastgir dropped obtain to section of his group and 50 % his workers in the chaos. Two employees customers are now in refugee camps in Qatar. Two other people are in Afghanistan, eager to depart. His roster is populated just about entirely by Afghan refugees, or the sons of refugees, who have found shelter in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, Sweden and over and above above the many years, fleeing the various conflicts that have afflicted Afghanistan considering that the 1980s. But a couple of nonetheless invest time in Afghanistan, and this yr even doing that became a issue.

One of Dastgir’s most vital players, Noor Husin, who still left for Britain when he was six, was in the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif in July as the Taliban approached. “I was terrified to be genuine,” he said. “Because every single day there was news, they’re receiving nearer, they are in the outskirts of the town. And I was pondering, certainly not. You just did not consider it was heading to happen.”

Husin managed to get to Kabul and scramble out of the nation, but he — like several of his teammates — thought the national team was concluded. “Everyone assumed, this is the close, the conclude of every little thing,” he reported.

Dastgir, nevertheless, was decided to hold it alive, to have it keep on to serve, he stated, as a uncommon symbol of unity in a place normally divided alongside ethnic or linguistic traces. So a handful of weeks ago, he picked up the mobile phone and arranged a helpful match — the 1st due to the fact the Taliban took above — in opposition to Indonesia. That was the straightforward aspect. He then had to come across a web page for the match, arrange flights and visas for players and supply coronavirus tests for everyone. With the Afghan soccer federation’s lender account frozen, Dastgir productively petitioned FIFA for assistance funding the trip.

With no kit person, Dastgir also experienced to ship 450 lbs . of schooling gear himself, and then persuade his brother-in-legislation to aid him clean it. He acquired soccer balls, arranged referees and — with no a communications workforce — promoted the recreation on his personal social media accounts. He even negotiated a broadcasting agreement to make certain the highest number of folks back in Afghanistan could view the match. And then, with all that carried out, he still experienced to find time to mentor the crew.

But as midnight neared in the resort restaurant on Saturday, there was nevertheless one crucial issue to solve: Which flag would the team fly?

A Youthful Chief

At 31, Dastgir is a person of the youngest coaches in entire world soccer. Born in Kabul, he escaped the country’s civil war with his relatives shortly immediately after Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989. He was just a handful of months old, and grew up in Pakistan and then India in advance of settling in the Netherlands.

In Europe, he acquired Dutch and was scouted by a major club, NEC Nijmegen. He was inevitably known as up for the Afghan national staff but appeared in a handful of game titles just before a knee harm ended his enjoying job.

“My coaches reported, ‘You have to begin coaching,’ for the reason that as a participant I was kind of leader of the crew,” he said. His 1st opportunity to lead Afghanistan came in 2016, when a foreign coach didn’t change up for a game amid a deal dispute.

“The players stated, ‘I imagine Anoush can handle it,’” Dastgir recalled. He lost that sport but the team had performed well. The next time the submit came open up, in 2018, he was presented the occupation.

By then, he was on the hunt for Afghan gamers. Numerous ended up learned among the the wide Afghan diaspora, refugees and their small children unfold all around the earth. When a match against Palestine in Kabul was arranged in 2018, the 1st worldwide match to be performed in Afghanistan in decades, Dastgir termed in several of his discoveries.

“I wished to have these gamers in Afghanistan to sense the state, to see the people, for the reason that most of them are born outside the nation,” he stated. “So if you tell them participate in for your state, they are like, ‘What is that?’”

Even now, the team’s place as a seen multicultural establishment reveals up in coaching classes.

Instructions ended up shouted out in Dutch and Pashto. Encouragement was available in German, Dari and English. From time to time, Dastgir switched languages midsentence. “My first captain is Tajik,” he reported. “My second captain is Pashtun. My 3rd captain is Hazara.” Two of his gamers, the brothers Adam and David Najem, ended up born in New Jersey.

Continue to, as the match neared, the issues of the flag and the anthem remained unresolved. This was not a decision to be taken evenly. The Taliban’s white flag, with the Shahada — the Muslim declaration of faith — printed on it, has replaced the inexperienced, pink and black tricolor in excess of Afghanistan’s presidential palace. And as the Taliban have instituted a broad ban on audio, the nationwide anthem has successfully been outlawed.

Dastgir realized that taking part in it and traveling the previous flag would be controversial the country’s men’s cricket workforce was rebuked by a Taliban chief right after accomplishing so at the 2020 Entire world Cup. He understood his option may price him his work or worse.

“I’m not frightened of finding fired,” Dastgir reported. “I’m the head coach of the countrywide team of 37 million Afghans. I’m not the countrywide crew coach of the Taliban routine, or the routine of Ghani. We hardly ever did it for the government. We did it for the folks.”

Cheers Far From Residence

No a single in Afghanistan’s camp was guaranteed if any supporters would really occur to observe them engage in in Belek, a coastal city in close proximity to Antalya.

Stadium officials worried about coronavirus limitations have been assuaged when Dastgir agreed to spend for security out of his personal pocket. There was also the problem of whether or not the Turkish law enforcement might prove to be a deterrent. At least 300,000 Afghan refugees and migrants have identified shelter in Turkey in current years, and quite a few are undocumented. But as the daylight pale and kickoff approached, hundreds of fans lined up outside the house the stadium gate.

“I want to display I am Afghan,” claimed Mursal, an 18-12 months-aged pupil wrapped in a significant Afghan flag but cautious plenty of to decline to give her very last name. She had fled to Turkey four decades in the past, immediately after her father was killed in Afghanistan, and had uncovered couple of options to wave the Afghan flag considering that she arrived. “It’s our flag. You really do not have a further flag. Just this flag, and no 1 can improve it.”

6 hundred supporters — the limit agreed upon with stadium officials — before long streamed in, filling the stadium’s just one lengthy grandstand.

A number of minutes just before kickoff, the teams lined up at midfield. In front of them, two of Afghanistan’s substitutes unfurled a substantial eco-friendly, crimson and black flag, the 1 Dastgir had carried with him to Belek. The anthem performed, a second beamed to tens of millions of Afghans back again household. No one was there to acquire the common prematch image: The squad’s official photographer escaped to Portugal months ago.

The recreation was frantic, soundtracked by the frequent sound of the Afghan admirers. Dastgir, dressed all in black, calmly gave tactical directions. Late in the second 50 %, he summoned Omid Popalzay, a Dutch-raised midfielder past witnessed participating in in Poland’s fourth tier. In the 85th minute, a couple of times following coming into the video game as a substitute, Popalzay scored. Minutes later, the remaining whistle blew. Afghanistan experienced won, and the enthusiasts erupted with joy.

1 admirer jumped 12 toes down onto the running observe encompassing the field hoping to get a selfie, but he was intercepted by the law enforcement and frog-marched again by his neck. A single player, Norlla Amiri, climbed on to the shoulders of a teammate so his infant son could be passed down to him.

Other fans threw their cellphones to the gamers, asking for selfies. Many needed shots with Faysal Shayesteh, a 30-12 months-previous midfielder who has had a globe-trotting experienced vocation because transferring to the Netherlands as a boy.

Virtually all Afghan admirers realized Shayesteh due to the fact of his tattoos, such as the one particular across his upper body that reveals Kabul’s skyline beneath a fighter jet and an assault helicopter, every bombarding the town with red hearts. Higher than his left breast had been two GPS coordinates: The initial is for Hengelo, the metropolis in eastern Holland the place he grew up. The other is Kabul, wherever he was born.

“If I converse about it I get emotional,” he claimed, keeping back tears. “Because I know what the people today in Afghanistan are heading via. And I know this is the only detail that can make them satisfied, winning a match for the national workforce. This is the only issue they have, so I’m extremely pleased.”

Dastgir viewed it all unfold from the again, filming some of it on his cellular phone to article on his Instagram account. No one experienced accomplished additional to make the second happen than him.