The record he is not willing to break

From an unknown entity to the most recognised sportsperson, from a teen prodigy to most accomplished striker, from a 16-years old to 27-years old captain of national team, Ali Ashfaq has grown on to become most talented player of his generation or for that matter any generation. He is one of a kind. Once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, at least in term of Maldives football. Across generations or eras there is nobody better than the man of steel, literary known in football fraternity for his brute strength, his marauding sprints.

He has broken several records of Dhivehi football and now yet another one, a record that he has been revising on his own for the past 12 years in a career full of individual honours. No other player has been so prolific in front of goals. No other player has scored four goals in a match for national team. No other player has scored 5 goals in a continental tournament. No other player has scored 12 goals in a match against a team in first division football. No other player has ever scored more than 30 goals in a season. Now with his 40th goal of the season, the 39 goals he had scored in 2009 pale into one more statistic like many other records he has either broken or renewed over the years.

What does all this mean, the statistics, the many different kinds of goals? So far he has scored some 324 goals in a career spanning 12 years. Too bad there is no way you can see many of his brilliant performances, the individual and outstanding goals, not even through YouTube. May be 10 per cent of it. Yet he had all the opportunity in the world to change it for the better. To pit himself against much better player of the world, in much better league, on much better remuneration. In the event, earn more exposure, to reach much wider global audience.

Instead he chose substandard over standard, lower league over better league, hence the easy way out. Whoever were his advisers when he was an 18-year old, and ready to go to Portugal for an opportunity to train with Benfica he had made a series of unexplainable decisions, each tampered to work against the potential boost it would give to his career. The result is he remains in Maldives despite innumerable offers from different part of the world. In educational parlance it is like choosing a university of Maldives over much better foreign university.

It is a shame that a player of his quality did not make full use of his vast talent. He could have been the most valuable export of Maldives, with Made in Maldives written large over every one of the goals he had scored. But now the time has passed. At the age of 27 a player normally reaches his peak, as he is now, after that it is slow gradual downward spiral. You lose few yards of pace, your sharpness and agility departs you. Your knees and ankle starts to groan as years of vigorous, strenuous training session and practice take its toll on your body; you become victim of frequent injuries. At best Ali Ashfaq has 3 or four years left in him to open his box of trickery and entertain crowd.

When he finally hangs up his boot and brings down curtain on his glorious career, the sadness will be not loss of an incredible talent but of a potential not fulfilled. A dream not realized. All the records broken, all the goals scored, all the statistics racked up pale into insignificance and become a footnote when placed side by side against his untapped talent.