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Asia's second top scorer to show magic in SAFF c'ship
04 December 2005
Uploaded: 04.12.2005, 5:00 PM
Ashfaag: Can he be a star in Karachi?
Male' Maldives - World Cup Qualification has ended and 32 teams have booked ticket to Germany next year. Even though tiny Maldives failed, they had a marvellous qualification round.
Ali Daei of Iran scored 8 goals in the whole qualifcation round and named the top scorer of Asia zone. Now the interesting part comes, Ali Ashfaag of Maldives is next with 6 goals followed by Turkeministan's Kuleiv, who also scored 6 goals.
There are two more Maldivian names in the leading scorers list, Ahmed Thoriq and Ibrahim Fazeel, each scored 3 goals. There is no other SAARC player in the list which contains players who scored more than 2 goals.
Maldives never had an outstanding player before and Maldives entered every tournament with bunch of players of an average skill, all they proved was team work. But the story is quite different this time, Maldives have a team full of confident and team work and an outstanding player, who deffinetly will become a threat to the opponents defence.
The twenty year old Ashfaag is Maldives leading scorer for the past three years and Maldives player of the year in 2003 and he is without any doubt, one of the promising young talent ever seen in local soccer history.
When scoring five goals in three friendlies played in Bangkok lately proved his form and why he was linked with Portugal's Benfica last year.
Eventhough we are a nations of tiny little islands, Maldivian fans have seen their players coming home with silver many times. So, they are curiously waiting to see the gold.
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
GROUP A : Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan
GROUP B : Bangladesh, India, Bhutan, Nepal
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